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The Lute of Life 



By 
JAMES NEWTON MATTHEWS 



Edited fcy 

WALTER HURT 



> 



Cincinnati: 

HORTON AND COMPANY 

Publishers 



Ma, 



Copyright, 191 i, 
horton and company 






©Cl.A2•)5:^^>l 



JAMES NEWTON MATTHEWS 

Bard of our Western world! — its prairies wide, 
With edging zvoods, lost creeks and hidden ways; 
Its isolated farms, with roundelays 

Of orchard zvarblers heard on every side; 

Its cross-road school-house, zvherein still abide 
Thy fondest memories, — since there thy gaze 
First fell on classic verse; and thou, in praise 

Of that, didst iind thine own song glorified. 

So singing, smite the strings and counterchange 
The lucently melodious drippings of 

Thy happy harp, from airs of "Tempe Vale," 

To chirp and trill of lowliest flight and range. 
In praise of our To-day and home and love — 
Thou meadow-lark no less than nightingale. 
James Whitcomb Riley. 



The singer who lived is always alive : we hearken and always 
hear.— John Boyi,e O'Reilly. 



IMMORTALITY 

{IN MEMORY OF JAMES NEWTON MATTHEWS) 

His harp is hushed and rimmed with rust, 

Its music is forever mute; 
The singer's lips are dumb in dust — 

A dead hand lies across the lute. 

Yet for the touch that Love has taught, 
For sake of szveetness that it gives. 

The gracious work his genius wrought 
Shall live as long as language lives. 

Walter Hurt. 



AN APPRECIATION 

In presenting to the world the writings of James 
Newton Matthews, I hope I may be pardoned my de- 
sire to plant a rose of remembrance above his dust. 

His personal friendship was one of the finest things 
with which my life has been favored ; to be chosen as 
his literary executor is an honor most men would 
signally value, and a trust few men would not sa- 
credly hold. 

The greatest poetry is not written ; the vaster part 
of it can not be reduced to verse. James Newton 
Matthews was the incarnate poem. His life was a 
lyric, his death was a threnody. 

Wherefore, out of place though it seem, I can not 
forbear, at the first, a word concerning the character 
of the man. 

He was one of the knightliest souls I ever knew. 

He went forth as a physician and ministered like 
a priest. He healed the heart as well as the body. His 
religion was a beautiful optimism that made better all 
who came within its zone. He never was known to 
speak ill of any living creature. He looked for the 
good in his fellow-men — and found it. 

His heart was a hospice for all the world's re- 
jected. Great sinners he enfolded with his forgiving 
pity, and the mantle of his capacious charity covered 
their multitudinous defects until they seemed robed 
with righteousness. 

He was genuinely a gentleman. 

In an age of commercialism, his soul was not soiled 
by any touch of sordidness. 

His hand was responsively open to every human 
need ; and he gave to others all that a man may give, 



S An Appreciation 



both of service and of substance. At the last he gave 
his hfe. For the death of Dr. James Newton Mat- 
thews was as surely a martyrdom as any that halos 
the pages of history. 

Matthews was great — and more; he was good. 

His life taught the lesson that a noble nature is 
greater than a noble name. 

Such as he are that "salt of the earth" which savors 
human society— they truly are the cream of creation. 

Matthews was a man of almost shrinking modesty. 
In an age of self-assertion and auto-aggrandizement', 
he stood abashed at the approach of Fame. Alien to 
that class of writers whose work is more successful 
than significant, he passed Valhalla's portals still an 
"mheritor of unfulfilled renown." 

He was great without knowing it. 
_ This adjective is used advisedly, confident that a 
critical reading of his work will justify it in the mind 
of every cultured person. 

In appraising literary values it seldom is fortunate 
to employ the superlative degree; yet it seems to me 
that m much he has written this occidental Orpheus 
strikes a nobler note than any other has sounded in the 
entire orchestra of New World poesy. 

Wherefore is it meet that I should sense my re- 
sponsibility as conservator of what Halleck has hap- 
pily called 

" That frailer thing than leaf or flower— 
A poet's immortality." 

The duty is a sacred one, and the work has been 
reverently done. 

Any attempt here at a detailed analysis of Dr. 
Matthews writings would be an impertinence The 
volume is open, the pages are cut, and the reader is 
nis own best critic. 

Were this appreciation of mine more than a verbal 
violet laid upon the grave of a friend, it were an un- 
pardonable presumption. Matthews needs no memo- 



An Appreciation 



rial. The worth of his work expresses itself endur- 
ingly. The texture of its tone is the integrity of in- 
spiration, and the fibre of it is imperishably interwoven 
with the life of his time. 

So shall I restrict myself to a general estimate. 

Many write poetry; Matthews made literature. 

Golden-gifted among the Sons of Song, his sure 
note sounded clear and vibrant above the myriad un- 
certain voices. 

Despite the greatness of his work, Matthews doubt- 
less will be ranked a "minor poet" by those superior 
critics who presume to classify the genius of their time 
much as a commission merchant grades his produce. 
A minor poet, be it known, is one who does not make 
verse which nobody understands and for which nobody 
would care did they understand it. 

Clarity and directness mark the method of Mat- 
thews. Whatever he says, he wishes to be understood. 
The integrity of his ideation is such that he needs notv 
to cocoon it with any cryptic phrasings. Ambiguit/y/ 
is the antithesis of effective poetic expression. Mat- 
thews' work proves that simplicity is not incompatible 
with the transmission of true inspiration. 

Notwithstanding the lamentations of preterist crit- 
ics, probably more good poetry is being written at 
present than has been produced in any previous period. 
Seldom, however, does any versifier soar to Helicon's 
summit. Too often the workmanship is not all that 
could be wished, else the thought leaves much to be 
desired. On one hand, the writer, with slavish defer- 
ence to form, mistakes the mechanics of prosody for 
art ; on the other hand, he ostentatiously despises tech- 
nique in order to disguise his lack of mastery of it. In 
Matthews' work we find the rare combination of a 
satisfying excellence in both matter and manner. 

Matthews has a fine sense of word values and a 
delicate discrimination in their application. He writes 
always with the restraint of the conscious artist, re- 
pressing that exuberance of expression instinctive to 



lo An Appreciation 



poetic natures and which in all its lavish license mars 
so much nearly excellent work of many of our present- 
day versifiers. His most finished productions, how- 
beit, relieved as they are by the spirit of spontaneity, 
show not the effect of effort. He mixes the pigments 
of poetry in just proportion, and applies them with 
proper tone and perfect touch. His most vivid colors 
never are gaudy, but blend harmoniously even as the 
flaming poppy consonantly lends its impassioned im- 
press to the landscape's cooling green. But mostly 
his color effects are subdued and mellow, like sunlight 
filtered through stained glass, and chaste as the at- 
mosphere of a cathedral. And this excellence is not 
less essential than artistic, for pervading all hiswork 
is that quality of completeness and ripened perfection 
which suggests the odor and blpom of empurpled 
grapes. 

His genius is various, his versatile verse ranging 
from the chaste classicism of "Tempe Vale" to the 
homely humor of "The Girl 'at Kep' a Diary" ; from 
the noble dignity of "A Tribute to Tennyson" to the 
human drollery of "The Country Boy at School." To 
borrow from Moore, Matthews was a minstrel 

"Who ran through each mode 
Of the lyre, and was master of all." 

Literary comparisons are not complimentary to 
originality. It is a tremendous tribute to the individu- 
ality of Matthews that he has been likened to no other 
writer. Emerson says, "He is truly great who is what 
he is from nature, and who never reminds us o£ 
others." Matthews is sui generis; he writes like none 
other than himself. 

Our poet is too recent for a just renown. Con- 
temporaneity is not favorable to complete appreciation. 
When the perspective of the years shall have fixed 
the proportions of genius, when Time has affixed his 
appraisement, then will the balances of Fame be truly 



An Appreciation ii 

adjusted. In that day will James Newton Matthews 
come into his own. 

This age is a struggle between Culture and Com- 
mercialism. It is the Poet that takes the aesthetic 
measurement of his time. The Vulgar Rich — the over- 
fed Barbarians — may purchase paintings, but they do 
not read poetry. That is a practice exclusive to the 
intellectual aristocracy. 

No deeper disgrace can come to any nation than 
that it neglect its great poets. Their works are their 
monuments. This book of James Newton Matthews 
should be reared in a pile to overtop the pyramids. 

Genius dwells not always in populous places; and 
it consecrates surely whatever spot where it abides. 
For Shakespeare's sake is Stratford-on-the-Avon hal- 
lowed ground, and because of Burns does the world 
make its pilgrimage to Ayr. And so in after years 
may the obscure hamlet of Mason in Southern Illinois, 
for that it was the home of James Newton Matthews, 
become the Mecca of mankind. And as in a later time 
the genius of Tennyson and Swinburne and Rossetti 
illumined England's empire, so in days to come will 
the work of James Newton Matthews give an added 
lustre to American letters. 

Walter Hurt. 



CONTENTS 



FAQB 

Ad Finem 221 

Affinity 73 

After a Little While 91 

Alone at the Farm 101 

Along the Wabash 120 

An Autumn Thought 320 

An Epistolary Exchange 247 

An Extravagant Simile 257 

An Invocation 259 

An Odd Fancy 233 

An Open Winter 286 

Another View 192 

An Outlook 182 

An Undecorated Grave 148 

Ashes of Shelley, The 255 

At Bay 200 

At Christmas Eve 286 

At Dusk 123 

At Maxinkuckee 291 

At Milking Time 298 

At Storm Lake 279 

At Thanksgiving 122 

At the Telescope 140 

At Uncle Reuben Ragan's 180 

At Waterloo 28 

Ballade of Busy Doctors 241 

Ballade of Old Poets 79 

Ballad of Decoration, A 33 

Ballad of Tears, A 224 

Bather, The 82 

Before the Doctor 219 

"Before the War" 319 

Behind the Veil 38 

Beneath a Picture 310 

13 



1 4 Contents 



PAGE 

BiTTER-SWEET 174 

Blonde and Brunette 74 

Bluebird in January, A 322 

Burden of Babylon, The 262 

California 54 

Charley Gibbs 57 

Choice, The 130 

Christmas Morning 326 

Christopher Columbus 242 

City of Snow, The 137 

Consolation, A 118 

Contemplation, A 316 

Contradiction 272 

Could Love Do More? 301 

Could She But Know 315 

Country Boy at School, The 208 

Coward, The 30 

Crime, The 201 

Cry of Marguerite, The 116 

Day and Night 220 

Dead Poet, The 26 

Death of the Baby, The 281 

Death-Rune, A 343 

Death— What Is It? 328 

Decoration Day 46 

Deserted Inn, The 76 

Dissipated Genius, A 327 

Doom 215 

Doves, The 290 

Dream, A 218 

Dream About Sonnets, A 194 

Dream in Marble, A 119 

Dream-Lady, A 320 

Dream of Beauty, A 114 

Dream of Days, A 39 

Dream of the End of Everything, A 49 

Dr. John A. Warder 245 

Dr. Stephen J. Young 250 



Contents 1 5 



PAGE 

Dusk 110 

Dying Butterfly, The 295 

Eclipse of the Moon 138 

Edgar Allan Poe 142 

Edison 261 

Enchanted Pool, The 288 

End of a Walk 248 

Esau 65 

Eugene Field 106 

Execution, The 243 

Eyes of Eleanora, The 163 

Faith and Duty 145 

Fetters of Flesh, The 125 

First Gray Hair, The 129 

Flood, The 252 

Flower-Girl, The 90 

Foolish Mariners, The 260 

For an Album 202 

Fragment, A 167 

Garden of Love, The 289 

Garland for the Dead, A 156 

"Gaun Hame" 175 

Genius 170 

Ghosts of My Garden, The 237 

Girl 'at Kep' a Diary, The 172 

Glimpse, A 169 

Golden Wedding, A 217 

Green Lanes of the Past, The 45 

Grub Street 205 

Hasty Burial, A 112 

Her Coming 133 

Her Feet on the Fender 40 

Her Knitting Needles 115 

Hint of Old Age, A 269 

How They Buried Him 36 

Hunter's Moon, The 66 

Hymn of Consolation, A 158 



1 6 Contents 



PAGE 

Idealist, The 147 

If 149 

Illinois 209 

In a Book-Stall 88 

In an Old Garden 249 

In Days to Come 78 

Indiana 129 

Indian Summer 93 

In Kansas-Town 48 

In Peaceful Days 198 

In Sickness 143 

Insomnia 233 

In Soudan 221 

In Summer Woods 212 

In Tempe Vale 175 

In the Garret 28 

In the Lazy Twilight 166 

Island of Reil, The 102 

John Pettijohn 280 

"Joukydaddles" 236 

July in the West 70 

Kidnaped 97 

Lady Laura in the North 296 

Lady of My Dream, The 189 

Last Hours of Chatterton 191 

Lay of the Hopeless 222 

Leave-Taking, a 284 

Legend Beautiful, A 44 

Letter to James Whitcomb Riley, A 86 

LiBBY Prison in Chicago 309 

Life's Horoscope 162 

Life— What Is It? 328 

Lilt of the Lunatic 309 

Lines to a Terrapin 132 

Little Girl that Could Not Cry, The 258 

Long Journey Home, The 201 

Louisville 162 



Contents 1 7 



PAGE 

Love and Duty 1^^ 

Love's Apology 126 

Loyalty of Nature 61 

McCullough's Autograph 257 

Mad December ^^^ 

Manhood's Measure 44 

Marble Monarch, A 169 

March 164 

Marking in Longfellow, A 124 

Meadow-Lark, The 226 

Meadows of Gold 293 

"Men Are April When They Woo" 154 

Morning in the Woods 146 

Murmurs of March 207 

My Favorite Poem 305 

My First Book 92 

My Friends 42 

My Good Right Hand 187 

My Guest 238 

My Lady Beautiful 144 

My Muse 273 

My Namesake 273 

My School-Mate, Little Goggles 43 

Mystery of Barrington Meadows, The 254 

National Birthday Ballad, A 195 

New Doctor, The 215 

New Nocturne, A 245 

Nightfall 253 

Night in June, A 98 

Night in November, A 154 

Night You Quoted Burns to Me, The 47 

Nocturne, A 161 

Not a Poet 150 

Not in Mood 323 

November 318 

November Down the Wabash 80 

Nutting Down the Wabash 122 



Contents 



PAOB 

O Bleak is the Night 285 

October 112 

O Heart of Mine! 27 

Old Captain, The 145 

Old Country Road, The 55 

Old Fire-Place, The 139 

Old House-Fly, The 229 

Old Major Speaks, The 298 

Old Mill, The 95 

Old Soldiers 160 

Old Village Depot, The 141 

On a Laurel Cane 323 

Once on a Time 50 

On Easy Street 63 

One Golden Hair 110 

On Parting with Louise 164 

On Wabash Stream 168 

Out on the Farm 41 

Passing of the Old Year 303 

Passion's Checkmate 234 

Patrick Henry Cronin 271 

Pause at the Portal, A 179 

Peasant and the Poet, The 225 

People of the Pen, The 205 

Pioneers, The 311 

Place Beautiful, The 153 

Plaint of the Pessimist 266 

Poet, The 211 

Prince of Bohemians, The 204 

Profile of Fall, A 52 

Rainless April, A 294 

Red Anarchist, A 99 

Reflection, A 293 

Retort, A 240 

Retrospect, A 63 

Rhyme of Brown October, A 100 

Rhyme of Resignation, A 219 

Robert Burns 302 

Rondeaux of Remembrance 171 



Contents 19 



PAGE 

Sea- Weed, A 203 

Secret, The 246 

Severed Friendship 193 

Shakespeare 256 

She Sleeps 282 

Sick in the City 135 

Silent Singer, The 325 

Sliver from the Sphinx, A 60 

Soldier of Castile, The 263 

Song, A 223 

Song of the Skeptic 213 

Song We Seek, The 232 

Sonnet, The 297 

Sonnets to the River W 275 

Spirit of Poetry, The 184 

Story of "She, " The 303 

Sweetheart I Never Have Seen, The 81 

Symbols 83 

Tattered Banners, The 300 

Tell Me Something 322 

There is no Luck About the House 127 

There is no Rest 189 

"They Had no Poet and so They Died" 56 

Thought, A 38 

Thwarted 62 

'T is Always Sunday in the Woods 153 

To a Bird on the Telegraph Wire 268 

To A Critic 165 

To A Lady 304 

To A Sleeping Boy 235 

Toast to the Past, A 185 

To Eleanore 327 

To Jessie 87 

To Joaquin Miller 60 

To John Clark Ridpath 128 

To John Uri Lloyd 109 

To Madeline 32 

To Madge 228 

To Maurice Thompson 270 

To Miss A. B. S 321 



20 Contents 



PAGE 

To My Absent Wife 227 

To My Lady Nicotina 75 

To Nature 288 

To Riley 178 

To Stephen 265 

To THE Bard that is to Be 231 

To Theophilus Van Deran 274 

To THE March Moon 96 

To William Vail 199 

Tribute to Tennyson, A 34 

Twenty Years After 151 

Twilight in August 91 

Uncle Dave 68 

Upon Her Wrist 284 

Vagary in Verse, A 197 

Vale! 240 

Valediction, A 329 

Valentine, A 278 

Vale of Gold, The 136 

Vanishing Visions 325 

Vision, A 180 

Voices, The 113 



Waking and Sleeping 108 

Walt Whitman 53 

'Way Down in Spice Valley 73 

What Does it Matter ? 220 

When I Am Old 253 

When I Come Home 318 

When I Shall Meet My Youth Again 37 

When Jimmy Comes from School 69 

When Maids Forget 244 

When Mary Went to Bethlehem 65 

When Pansy Plays the Violin 85 

When Reuben Was My Beau 276 

When Riley Writes 134 

When We Three Meet 98 

When Your Father Went to War 305 



Contents 2 1 



PAQB 

Where Willie Was 287 

Why Not? 121 

William Henry Ragan 84 

Winter Night, A 326 

Winter Night Among My Books, A 131 

Winter Night on the Farm 71 

With the Doctor 92 

Woman 168 

Writer, The Ill 

Young Egypt's Song to the North 51 

? 72 

TRIBUTES IN VERSE 

Pronominal, Bishop Robert Mclntyre Z3Z 

Sovereign Singer, The, Bishop Robert Mclntyre 333 

Sonnet to a Singer, Minnie Adella Hansen 337 

Our Singing Doctor, Benjamin S. Parker 337 

Wreath o' Heather, A, Alonzo Hilton Davis 338 

Nature's Troubadour, Lee Fairchild 339 

Western Warbler, A, Walter Hurt 339 

MEMORIAL POEMS 

Our Beloved Bard, Benjamin S. Parker 345 

Ode, Henry Tudor 346 

My Jamesy, William Colby Cooper 347 



THE LUTE OF LIFE 



m 



THE DEAD POET 

Like some large light his life went out, 
Undimmed by any shade of doubt, 

Leaving behind 

The image of a mind 
Star-white, and by the very night refined. 

Love linked his spirit unto ours 
Briefly, but with a chain of flozvers — 
And every thought 
Of his, it seemed, was fraught 
With beauty from some brighter planet 
brought. 

He scattered lilies all the way 
That Love ordained his feet to stray. 

And when he broke 

Time's chrysalis, and woke 
In Paradise, we pondered all he spoke. 

o i l ^i i^^i^ i i ^1 11 ^i H 



The Lute of Life 



O HEART OF MINE! 

O heart of mine ! you are far from home, 

And steep are the summits that round you He ; 
Darker and darker the ways you roam, 

And danger lurks in the lands thereby ; 
You look so weary, O heart of mine! 

You stagger and faint like a stricken thing ; — 
Come back, come back, to the warmth and wine, 

Where the old friends are and the robins sing ! 

Is nothing left that you care for more. 

Nothing of pleasure — naught to allure, 
Where the summer dreams in the open door. 

And the lights fail not, and the loves endure ? 
O heart of mine, in the wilderness 

Straying alone the long nights through, 
Come back, come back, to the old caress. 

And the welcome warm that is waiting you ! 

Come with laughter and come with song, 

To the quiet loves and the kindly ways — 
To the lonely soul that has watched so long 

Thro' perilous nights and painful days — 
Waited and watched, and wondered why 

You came not back to the glad sunshine, 
Where we were so happy, you and I, 

And Love was with us, O heart of mine ! 

27 



28 The Lute of Life 



AT WATERLOO 

"Stand firm !" said the Duke, as a courier came 
Thro' the battery's breath, with his bare brow aflame ; 
"Stand firm!" — "But we perish" — "Stand firm!" cried 

the Duke, 
And the ofiicer flushed as he felt the rebuke, 
But he coolly replied, 'mid the roar of the gun, 
"You '11 find us all here when the battle is done." 

Death's carnival followed. O'er field and o'er trench, 

In billows of doom, dashed the waves of the French ; 

As firm as a sea-battered wall stood the rank 

Of that fated brigade, — not an English heart shrank ; 

Together they perished, but Wellington won, — 

He found them all there when the battle was done. 



IN THE GARRET 

Up in the garret, shut off from the day. 
Where the cobwebs hang and the spiders play, 
Where the mouse runs over the naked sill, 
And the cricket is grinding her coffee-mill — 
Ah, that is the place where the soul can hide 
In a nest of memories glorified 
By the flight of time and the fall of tears, 
Where nobody sees and nobody hears. 

When the dull rain drips, and the house is still, 
And the heart grows sad, as it sometimes will, 
There is never a spot on the earth so sweet 
To pleasure the fancy and rest the feet, 
As the mellowing twilight brooding there. 
Where the rafters meet, like the hands in prayer, 
Over the dreamer fingering slow 
The tear-stained relics of long ago. 

Everything has a hallowed look, 
From a rusty key to a copy-book 



The Lute of Life 29 

Wherein was scrawled in a boyish hand 
Some verse that a girl might understand — 
Some blue-eyed maid of the past, whose name 
Went out in the heat of a fiercer flame 
When the Fair Prince came and bore her away 
From the heart that beckons her back to-day. 

Perchance a ribbon is brought to view 
That fettered a braid of a golden hue 
In the primrose time, when the heart beat high 
With a hope that died as the years went by ; 
Or a letter, scented with mignonette 
And dewed with the tears of an old regret, 
Is lifted out of its grave, forsooth, 
Adrip with the odorous dreams of youth. 

Under the gable window lies, 

Hidden away from the world's cold eyes. 

An old accordion, cracked and dumb, 

Waiting a hand that will never come — 

The touch of a sister, long since strayed 

From the old hearth-stone, where she sat and 

played 
In a light less bright than the loving look 
That gladdened her face in the chimney-nook. 

And over there where the shadows steal 
Is the phantom shape of a spinning-wheel, 
Whose homely runes from the days of yore 
Come echoing back to the heart's warm core 
In strains more sweet than an artist wrings 
From the voiceful flute or the viol's strings — 
For the wraith of a mother beside it stands, 
Twirling it still with her blessed hands. 

And what is this but a moldering boot 
With a coppered toe, for the toddling foot 
Of one who waded the earliest snow 
Of a winter that went long years ago? 



30 The Lute of Life 

Dear little brother! your feet are shod 
Long since with light for the hills of God, 
• And the old home stairs are echoing still 
The steps we '11 follow when fate shall will. 

In the dust of the garret Old Time's track 
Is found, with his foot-prints all turned back, 
As if, while the shadows were round him cast. 
He had bowed his head o'er the sleeping past; 
And under the rafters Memory sits, 
Alone with the spiders, and knits and knits 
The gossamer ladders that Fancy climbs 
To the golden gates of the olden times. 



THE COWARD 

Dave was a coward and everyone 

Knew it, and Lord ! how we went for him, 
And made him the butt of our brutal fun. 

Till his face would blanch and his blue eyes brim 
Into pools of tears ! — but he murmured not — 

He would just skulk off to his tent and sit 
Hour after hour in the self -same spot, 

With his elbow crook'd and his face in it. 

There was something about that same boy Dave — 

Something we never could understand ; 
He came to the war on the first wild wave 

That billowed the blue-caps over the land. 
He was an orphan, and whether he had 

Brother or sister we never knew, 
Nor whence he came to us — ^he was a lad 

That was hard to fathom, and talked with few. 

Somehow it seemed that he was not brave 

Like the rest of the boys, but he kept his place 

In the long and perilous march, poor Dave, 
With a hushed resolve and a patient face. 



The Lute of Life 31 

He asked no favors, he made no sign 

Of the pangs that pierced his pride Hke a dart — 
And never a man in the old proud hne 

Had a cleaner soul or a kinder heart. 

But Dave was a coward! and that was enough, 

In the army, to damn the saintliest soul ; 
'Twas a day for the sternest and sturdiest stuff, 

For steel-strung nerves and for self-control ; 
We had small time for sentiment, then — 

Small time to squander on childish fears — 
A man had to stand like a man, with men. 

Full-fronting the havoc of those dark years. 

I think it is true in the lives of some 

That the tide turns late, and the pluck they boast 
Falters, and those to the front will come 

Who were counted the weakest and scorned the 
most; 
Two silences bide in the breast of youth. 

And one is the silence of fear — and one 
Is the golden, God-like silence of truth. 

That a braggart even is bound to shun. 

Did I say Dave was a coward? — Well, 

It looked that way for a while, but when 
We saw him flash through the breath of hell 

At Stone River, laughing among the men — 
When we caught the gleam of his yellow hair 

Through the battery's smoke, and heard his voice 
Ring out through the roar of the carnage there, 

With the troops of Turchin from Illinois ; 

When we saw, like a star, his pale face shine 

Through the leaping flames, as we passed the mouth 

Of the blazing guns, in the broken line. 

Whirling and hurling the gray-coats south — 

When we saw, God help us ! his boyish form 
Battling apart from the rest, half-hid 



32 The Lute of Life 



By the blinding smoke and the bursting storm, 
Where the dead were piled in a pyramid; 

When we saw, in the front of the awful fray, 

The bravest reel, and the old flag fall. 
Clutched in the hand of the lad that lay 

Riddled with shot, and beyond them all — 
When we saw, at the close of that fearful fight, 

Two blue eyes and a shock of curls, 
Clotted with blood, and a face all white 

And calm, in death, as a sleeping girl's; 

We turned away — and we spoke no word ; 

We turned, with a feeling of shame o'erpowered ; 
And we noticed that each man's eyes were blurred 

As they fell on the face of that fallen coward. 
I tell you the army was full of men 

Like Dave, who, timid and half-afraid, 
Patiently bided their time, and then 

Died, like Christs, on the barricade. 



TO MADELINE 

The stars that at my casement shine 
Pale in thine eyes, O Madeline, — 
Thine eyes, within whose depths I see 
A light of love that lureth me 
To quest the seas beyond the line 
That separates thy soul from mine, 
O Madeline! 

Not any silks of Samarcand 
Are softer than thy snowy hand ; 
Not any lily-flower afloat 
Can mate the whiteness of thy throat. 
Nor any floss, however fine, 
Compare with that brown hair of thine, 
O Madeline! 



The Lute of Life 33 



The timid apple-blossom dyes 
That laugh into the warm May skies, 
The tender crimson tints that dwell 
Within the windings of a shell, — 
These mingling hints of cream and wine, 
These tempting hues thy cheeks combine, 
O Madeline! 

The pouting grapes that bend the vines 
What time the still September shines, 
The softened scarlet on the peach 
That glimmers just beyond our reach, — 
These but suggest in colors fine 
The sweetness of those lips divine, 
O Madeline! 

Yet all the graces, all the charms. 
Of eyes and hair, of lips and arms. 
Are but the outward signs that show 
The life, the light, the heat, the glow. 
The flames of love that leap and twine. 
Where I would warm this heart of mine, 
O Madeline! 



A BALLAD OF DECORATION 

In the garlanded grass where the multitudes plod. 
And the splendor of spring overflows. 

The souls of the heroes climb up thro' the sod 
And smile in the cheeks of the rose. 

We turn back the leaves of the ledger of doom 
And trace thro' the stains of old tears 

The story that closed 'mid the grief and the gloom 
Of the wearisome, war-shadowed years. 

We stifle a sigh as we trample the clay 
Where the ranks of the pale legions lie — 



34 The Lute of Life 

And we dream, as we turn from their tablets away, 
That for freedom 't is glorious to die. 

The teeth of Old Time on the granite may grate 
Till the proudest shafts crumble and fall — 

But Remembrance will stand with her flowers at the 
gate 
Till the trumpet is loosed on the wall. 

Ah, sweet is the breath of the roses, and sweet 
Are the light and the laughter of May ; 

But the Past, like a spectre, is chained at our feet, 
In the flash of his martial array. 

The chaplets of love we may bind on the urns 
Of the Blue and the Gray with our tears. 

But the wrong of rebellion still rankles and burns 
Like a fire in the heart of the years. 

The shriek of the bondmen, the clank of the chain, 

Are hushed, as a tale that is told, 
And the clouds that once hung like a pall o'er the plain 

Have swept by, and the skies are as gold. 

The birds build their nests in the cannon's cold lips, 
The camps have extinguished their fires. 

And the baby of Ethiop plays with the whips 
That were soaked in the blood of its sires. 



A TRIBUTE TO TENNYSON 

He died, as died the daylight on 
The Surrey hills, — across his eyes 
The full moon mounting up the skies 

In streams of mellow glory shone. 

No Bedivere of brawny limb 

Upbore him to the lake's lone strand, 



The Lute of Life 35 

Nor any samite-mantled hand 
Pushed up the wave to welcome him. 

He went alone, and questioned not, 
Clothed on with love and reverence, 
To sing of grander tournaments, 

Beside an older Camelot. 

Across the lonely mountain mere 
His silver bark bears down the dusk, 
Beyond the happy bowers of Usk, 

Where summer bideth all the year. 

The last of all the knights and best, 
The one whose purpose did not fail 
Until he found the Holy Grail * 

Of truth, — his one eternal Quest! 

Tho' Merlin moveth to his rest, 
The old enchantment passes not, — 
We still can ride with Lancelot, 

And war with Modred in the West. 

We still can pity Guinevere, 

When, prone before the blameless King, 
And writhing like a stricken thing. 

She weeps her sins out, tear by tear. 

Tho' Merlin goeth to his rest. 

The woven charm can never change ; 
Upon the lonely moated grange, 

The one sad love is still confessed. 

We still can hear the curlews call. 
And from the barren, barren shore 
Can see the dreary gleams, once more, 

Around the towers of Locksley Hall. 



2,6 The Lute of Life 



The spell of song is broken not, 
And evermore on English ground 
The good Knights of the Table Round 

Will hold their court at Camelot. 



HOW THEY BURIED HIM 

To-day they buried my old friend Willis, 

My boy-friend Willis of happier years — 
Willis, once true as the rock to the hill is, 

First with his laughter, as first with his tears ; 
Life in his eyes was a volume full-written 

Of sadness and gladness, of shadow and shine; 
Humble his lot was, alack ! and sin-smitten, 

But words that condemn him shall never be mine. 

I stood on the verge of his low grave this morning, 

I heard the dull roll of the clods on the board, 
And the silence around had a semblance of scorning 

That cut to the core of my soul like a sword. 
A cold text of Scripture, made cold by the reading, 

No word sympathetic to comfort or thrill us, — 
No least muttered hope for the mother-heart bleeding. 

No syllabled hint of the future of Willis. 

No fault flecked the soul of my comrade but weak- 
ness, — 

By nature a mortal ineffably tender, 
And guiltless, withal, as a girl in her meekness, 

He battled his best, but was forced to surrender. 
God, leaning out from His golden embrasure. 

Witnessed the long-losing struggle until. His 
Heart growing heavy with righteous displeasure, 

He came, in His love, to the rescue of Willis. 

Pity? Christ pity us all in our little, 

Ignoble, half-hearted, illiberal creeds — 
Our petty beliefs that are bloodless and brittle, 



The Lute of Life 37 

That sway in the storm and are shivered like reeds ; 
One dies — and a craven confession may cover 

A life whose belittling hypocrisies chill us, — 
And, thinking the whole thing over and over, 

I would take my chance with my boy-friend Willis. 



WHEN I SHALL MEET MY YOUTH AGAIN 

Sometime — I know not how nor when — 
This weary road I journey on 
Will lead thro' lands that I have known. 
And I shall meet my youth again, — 
Thro' some old wood my childhood knew 
The road, at length, will bring to view 
A cottage in a lonely glen. 
Where I shall meet my youth again. 

Where I shall greet beside the gate 
A boy whose un forgotten face 
Will glad me with its tender grace 
Of artless life and love elate ; — 
My soul will sparkle in his gaze 
The while his sunburnt hand I raise 
Against my lips in silence, then. 
When I shall meet my youth again. 

And yet the lad of whom I dream 
May know me not, for I shall be 
To him a deep'ning mystery 
Of things that are and things that seem ; 
From these old scars of time and toil 
His heart, albeit, may recoil. 
As children's often do from men, 
When I shall meet my youth again. 

But he shall know me, at the last, 
And creep into my arms, and weep, 
As I shall lull his lids to sleep 



38 The Lute of Life 

With stories of the changed past; 
And ere the morning breaks upon 
Us twain, our souls shall be as one, 
And time shall breathe a soft "amen," 
When I shall meet my youth again. 



A THOUGHT 

What if some one of the human race 

Were living, who saw Christ face to face — 

Who saw in His eyes the tender shine 

Of a love so lowly, yet so divine ; 

Who saw the toss of His chestnut hair 

In curls that fondled His forehead fair; 

Whose eyes for a moment found repose 

On the shoulders bent with the wide world's woes ; 

Who caught one tone of the voice that gave 

Hope to the heart and life to the grave ; — 

If one like this on the earth were found. 

Think of the throngs that would gird him round, 

Eager to cull from his lips one word 

That he from the lips of the Lord had heard. 



BEHIND THE VEIL 

As a painter walked forth in the dawn, half-adream, 

He saw the green splendor of sumptuous trees 
Waving under the winds, and his eyes drank the gleam 

Of the blue vagues above him like pendulous seas; 
The world was a picture, so fair and so fine 

That the artist beheld it with marveling eyes, — 
But he saw not the hand of the Painter divine, 

Who stood at His easel, just back of the skies. 

A sculptor once strolled 'mid the mountains, entranced, 
Untongued, in a tremulous transport of Art, 

As he scanned the grim turrets of granite that glanced 
On the rim of the sun, standing stark and apart; 



The Lute of Life 39 



His soul sipped the scene till it reeled with despair, 
Till his chisel fell dulled on the stones at his feet, — 

But he saw not the Sculptor, half-hid on the stair, 
And he heard not the mallet of God as it beat. 

In fancy I saw a musician enchained 

In a tangle of melodies, tremblingly twirled 
From the throats of the throstles, like symphonies 
strained 

From the harps of old minstrels, and blown down 
the world ; 
He stood in the dawning, deliriously dazed, 

And as still as a bronze, — but he saw not all, 
The swinging baton that the Master upraised 

At the Fount of all music, just over the wall. 

I saw, in my vision, a poet who wrote 

With a pencil of light, from a heart that was fraught 
With the fervor of passion, — whose soul was afloat 

On a palpitant ocean of fancy and thought ; 
His lays by the lips of all lands were rehearsed 

Till they set the slow pulse of the peoples a-quiver, — 
But he saw not the face of the Poet who first 

Gave the song to the sea and the rhyme to the river. 



A DREAM OF DAYS 

YDSTHRDAY 

When the wind is driving hard against the pane, 
And the fading firelight flickers on the floor. 

There floateth down the night a faint refrain 
From the dear delightful days that are no more. 
O the happy, happy days ! 
When the world was all ablaze 
With the beauty of the morning 
Trailing up the winding ways — 
When the bluebird warbled nigh, 
And the lark went up the sky 



40 The Lute of Life 



Like an echo of the luting 
Of an angel sweeping by. 

— TO-DAY — 

But a fly is in the foaming flask we drain, 

And a flaw is in the flute forevermore, 
And the happy dreams, to-night, that haunt the brain 
Are silenced by a fear that moves before. 

O the night so long and lone — 

Not an echo — not a tone — 

Not a star to cleave the darkness, 

Nor a song to still the moan 

Of the soul in its unrest, 

In its vain and voiceless quest 

For the unreturning beauty 

Of a hope it once caressed! 

— TO-MORROW — 

Yet life, with all its mystery and pain, 
Remaineth sweet if love be at the core ; 
And even to the heart that pleads in vain, 

A time will come when it shall ache no more. 

A day will dawn at last 

When no cloud shall overcast 

The tenderness and splendor 

Of the passion of the past; 

And the patient hearts that wait 

In silence at the gate. 

Will feel upon their longing lips 

The kiss of love, tho' late. 



HER FEET ON THE FENDER 

The winter blew chill, but the night it was white 
As the satiny sheen of the hand that I crushed, 

As we sat where the bright chandelier shed its light 
On her billowy curtains and ottoman plushed; 



The Lute of Life 41 

It was middle December outside, but I swear 

I could hear the birds sing, and could feel the 
spring's splendor 

Blown into my blood from her tropical hair. 

As she teetered her tender white feet on the fender. 

We are wed, — and the days they have sped overhead 

Like the half-finished dreams of a lover who lies 
In the cool summer night, when the planets burn red 

Thro' the lattice that shadows his slumberless eyes ; — 
It is middle December, — the chandelier glows, 

And I fall to the floor in most servile surrender, — 
And she? — Well, I tickle her baby's pink toes, 

As she smilingly sews, with her feet on the fender. 

OUT ON THE FARM 

A home in the country ! what care I 

For the tossing town with its madd'ning din. 
Where the grinding wheels of the world go by. 

And the soul grows sick as the crowds crush in ; 
Better the lanes where the linnets be, 

And the brown bees drone in the dewy thyme; 
Where the wild-bird flutes on the tulip-tree, 

And the garnet bells of the pawpaws chime. 

A home in the country! Never for me 

The flash of fashion, and feverish beat 
Of the trampling masses my sad eyes see 

Pulsing forever from street to street; — 
Better the woods where the waters meet, 

And the grass grows cool by the shelvy shore, — 
Where the wild-flowers blush in their dim retreat. 

And the clamor of town is heard no more. 

A home in the country, blessed and sweet 

From the hand of God, where the shade and shine 

Play all day long in the rippling wheat. 

And the berries glow in the grass, like wine ; 



42 The Lute of Life 

Never a home in the town be mine, 

'Mid the stir and whir, and the gaud and glare- 
Give me the farm where the clovered kine 

Are heard on the hill, — and the world is fair. 



MY FRIENDS 

(at A banquet) 

God bless my friends ! my heart to-night 

Is pulsing with a strange delight — 

Is reeling 'midst the rare perfume 

Of some dim Eden, brimmed with bloom. 

My fancies fail — my senses swim — 

My hot blood to its urn descends ; 
I can but lift a hand to Him, 

And thankful say, "God bless my friends !" 

Some strange narcotic dulls my brain, 

Some spirit-finger weaves a chain 

Of silence on my lips, and I, 

Made blind with kindness, can but sigh. 

And, like the Paraclete in prayer, 

Sit speechless, as my soul ascends 
The starry stairway of the air 

With this appeal, "God bless my friends!" 

As sunlight unto life is, and 
As rain is to an arid land — 
As is a rock's cool shadow in 
The desert to the Bedouin, 
So to the soul the timely touch 

Of loving hands, whose largess lends 
To every crippled heart a crutch, 

And prompts the plea, "God bless my friends !' 

However winds blow down the world. 

And loves be wrecked, and fortunes whirled 

In hopeless havoc, still there lies 



The Lute of Life 43 

In life an untrod Paradise 

For every weary, toil-worn wight, 

Whose aching heart, as on he trends, 
Can blend a prayer with mine to-night, 

And fondly say, "God bless my friends!" 



MY SCHOOL-MATE, LITTLE GOGGLES 

I called her Little Goggles in those academic days 
That glimmer in my fancy as my recollection strays 
To the happy-hearted winters of the time so long ago, 
When we wrote our Latin lessons with a cutter in the 

snow. 
When the problems of geometry were demonstrated in 
The pretty curves and angles of her dainty mouth and 

chin ; 
O the slender little beauty ! I can feel her tender hand 
Reaching out across the darkness to the lone years 

where I stand. 

Little Goggles was the text-book that I studied all the 

while, 
Her laughter was my logic, and my rheteoric her smile ; 
And all that my astronomy could teach about the skies 
Was far more plainly written in the planets of her 

eyes ; — 
We crossed the yellow Tiber every evening into Rome 
On a bridge of cushioned rockers, in her cozy little 

home ; 
And the old romantic story of the Serpent of the Nile 
My fancy comprehended in the fervor of her smile. 

Little Goggles ! Little Goggles ! do you ever think of 

me 
When the wind is in the maple and the winter 's o'er 

the lea ? 
Little Goggles — Little Goggles — in the midnight of the 

vears 



44 The Lute of Life 

I can see your blue eyes dancing through the dripping 

of my tears ; 
And often in my solitude I wonder where you are, 
And marvel are you happy, as I fondle my guitar, 
And sink into the rocker of my desolated home. 
And cross again the Tiber of old memories to Rome. 



MANHOOD'S MEASURE 

The man who loves his fellow-man, 
And winds a willing arm about 
His brother when the storms are out, 

And lends him all the help he can — 
No matter what may be his creed, 
A kind God knights him for the deed. 

The man, however scorned and poor, 
Who bares his arm for truth, and breaks 
A lance for crippled justice, shakes 

A shower of good from shore to shore, — 
And Heaven, unfolding, gilds with grace 
The swart lines of his sturdy face. 

However lowly be his guise. 

The man who finds it in his breast 
To brave the worst and hope the best. 

Is nobly poised, and in him lies 
The bursting germ whose bloom shall be 
The badge of immortality. 



A LEGEND BEAUTIFUi; 

'Twas thus the Dervish spake: "Upon our right 
There stands unseen an angel with a pen, 
Who notes down each good deed of ours, and then 

Seals it with kisses in the Master's sight. 

Upon our left a sister-angel sweet 
Keeps daily record of each evil act, 



The Lute of Life 45 

But, great with love, folds not the mournful sheet 

Till deepest midnight, when, if, conscience-racked, 
We lift to Allah our repentant hands, 
She smiles and blots the record where she stands; 
But if we seek not pardon for our sin, 
She seals it with a tear, and hands it in." 



THE GREEN LANES OF THE PAST* 

I care not to gaze at the years coming on, 

Thick-mantled in mist and with doubts overcast. 
But would rather stray back to the days that are gone. 

Along the green lanes of the past — 
Across the cool meadows of memory, where 

The birds ever sing, and the wild waters fall, 
And the laughter of children is borne on the air, 

And love shineth over it all. 

The painter may picture the future in dyes 

That rival the rose and the rainbow, and still 
It may leave him at last but a guerdon of sighs, 

And a hope that it failed to fulfill ; 
The poet may sing of the splendors supreme 

Of the opulent ages, far-coming and vast — 
I question him not, yet I ask but to dream 

On the old quiet hills of the past. 

The past is my own — there is nothing uncertain 

In all its wide range, and my title is clear — 
While the future, at best, is a face on the curtain, 

That fades as my feet draweth near; 
Then give me the blossoms, the birds and the bowers, 

And every loved scene where my soul clingeth fast. 
Like an evergreen ivy that mantles the towers 

And feeds on the dews of the past. 

* By pertnission of the Ladies^ Home Journal. Copyright, The Curtis 
Publishing Company. 



46 The Lute of Life 



DECORATION DAY 

The little green billows keep rolling away, 

Keep rolling away with the years ; 
And to-day as we stand on the summit of May, 

We are touched with the scene that appears ; 
Where once the blue column kept soldierly pace, 

Athrill to the throb of the drum, 
A few weary vet'rans now limp into place 

With limbs that are feeble and numb. 

Their looks are more eloquent far than their speech. 

As they totter along in the sun, 
And we almost can read in the bearing of each 

A wish that the journey was done, — 
That the journey was done, and the gateway was 
passed 

That leads to their comrades who lie 
In their hammocks of fame, sleeping sweetly at last, 

Where no clamor of battle is nigh. 

The earth may resound with the coming of wars. 

The bugles be blown as of yore, 
But these shall lie down with their glory and scars, 

And dream of the carnage no more ; 
In their "windowless palaces," under the vine, 

They shall slumber the dim ages through, 
Till the trumpet is loosed by the Master Divine 

And their long-broken march they renew. 

Then up thro' the laneways of light they will go 

To the cool, shady meadows that lie 
Where the harpers are heard, and the asphodels blow, 

And the River of Life floweth by; 
Where the tents of eternity glitter and gleam 

In the hush of the amaranth grove, 
And the world drifts away like a desolate dream. 

From the luminous Kingdom of Love. 



The Lute of Life 47 

The little green billows keep rolling away 

O'er the ocean of grasses and leaves, 
And we follow them outward and onward, each May, 

With the chaplets that Memory weaves; 
But the time it will come, as the swift seasons roll. 

When one certain grave with its flowers, 
Forever and ever must point to the goal 

Where sleeps the last hero of ours. 



THE NIGHT YOU QUOTED BURNS TO ME 

The winds of early autumn blew 
Across the midnight. Overhead 
A wild moon up the heavens fled, 

And cut the sable vault in two ; 

We heard the river lap and flow, 
We turned our poet-fancies free — 

My heart did all its cares forego, 
The night you quoted Burns to me. 

A gray owl from a blasted limb 

Dropped down the dark and blundered by. 

As if a fiend with flaming eye 
Fast-followed in pursuit of him ; 
Ah, then you crooned beneath the moon 

A ditty weird as weird could be — 
And Tam O'Shanter crossed the Doon, 

The night you quoted Burns to me. 

We praised the "Lass o' Ballochmyle," 
We talked of Mary, loved and lost, 
Until our spirits touched and crossed. 

And melted into tears, the while; 

We drank to "Nell," and "Bonnie Jean," 
To "Chloris," and the "Banks o' Cree,"— 

Blest hour ! I keep its memory green. 
The night you quoted Burns to me. 



48 The Lute of Life 

The Wabash hills their heads low hung, 
As floating up their winding ways 
They caught the sound of "Logan Braes," 

And heard "Sweet Afton's" glory sung; 

And loud the Wabash did deplore 
That no brave poet-voice had she 

To lend her fame forevermore, 

The night you quoted Burns to me. 

O dear, delightful autumn night, 

Forever gone beyond recall! 

Comrade, the clouds are over all, 
And you — you 've vanished from my sight ; 
Still flows the river as of yore. 

The owl still haunts the lonely tree, 
And I '11 forget, ah, nevermore, 

The night you quoted Burns to me. 



IN KANSAS-TOWN 

(on revisiting the prairie WlU^AGt) 

As I came into Kansas-town, 

I saw the long, green slopes of corn 
Flash in the early light of morn 

Like gems upon a monarch's crown ; 

Across the breezy fields I heard 

A farm-boy singing, up and down, 

A ballad blithe as any bird, — 
As I came into Kansas-town. 

The warm black soil — the velvet sod — 
The wild-bird's song — the plowman's voice- 
"And this," I said, "is Illinois, 

The last and fairest land of God — 

The home of happy hearts and free, 
Where Care, at last, forgets to frown" — 

Ah, sweet the dream that haunted me 
As I came into Kansas-town ! 



The Lute of Life 



49 



As I came into Kansas-town, 

I thought of one dear girl whose feet 

Once strolled along its happy street, 
Her gold hair gleaming like a crown, 
Who grew to be a gracious wife, — 

Dear soul ! and now the stars look down 
Upon her grave. . . . Light of my life. 

How sweet it was in Kansas-town! 

The years may come, the years may go, 
And I, God knows, may wander far — 
May sleep beneath some alien star, 

And hear no more the Ambraw flow; 

Yet here my aching heart shall cling 

Through all the seasons, bright or brown, 

As long as any bird shall sing. 
Or blossom blow, in Kansas-town. 



A DREAM OF THE END OF EVERYTHING 

O the wind — the wind in the trees ! 

O the grasses that wave and toss ! 
And, O, the moon floating over these. 

Muffled with clouds so finer than floss ! 
Read us the meaning of all of this — 

The wild star's flight — the whir of a wing, — 
Hint us the truth, whatever it is, 

In a dream of the end of everything. 

O the rush and the crowd of life. 

And, O, the quiet that comes at last ! 
We sicken and swoon in the ceaseless strife 

Of speculations so vain and vast ; — 
Spell us the lesson that underlies 

The fears and the tears that strike and sting- 
Read us the riddle and make us wise 

With a dream of the end of everything. 

4 



50 The Lute of Life 

One man smiles and another sighs, 

The lone sea sobs and the river sings, 
And win if we will the world's first prize, 

Brief at best is the bliss it brings; 
For time effaces both foul and fair. 

All is alike with slave or king; 
And the one glad gift we fain would share 

Is a dream of the end of everything. 

War in the East and war in the West, 

Battleships building and muster of men — 
So the long century goes to its rest. 

Repeating the same sad story again ; 
Friends to-day, and to-morrow foes, — 

Thus does the pendulum swing and swing ;- 
Break, O light, and the truth disclose. 

In a dream of the end of everything. 



ONCE ON A TIME 

'Once on a time," — 
How fondly falls that phrase 

Upon our fancy, like a far-ofif chime 
Of half-heard bells, in some forgotten clime. 
Pealed from the Kingdom of Dead Yesterdays. 
'Once on a time," — 
The tale we loved, always 

Began just so, and every fairy rhyme 
Our mothers crooned commenced, "Once on 
time," 
And ended with a burst of boyish praise. 

As one who, in a lonely twilight-land. 
Is startled by the wraith of some loved voice 
Long since that joined the silences sublime, — 
So I, amidst the shadows where I stand, 
Ring'd with dim dreams of unreturning joys, 
Awaken at the words, 

"Once on a time." 



The Lute of Life 51 



YOUNG EGYPT'S* SONG TO THE NORTH 

Come down, come down to the orchard-lands 

That lie to the south, — come down and see 
The beautiful Egypt whose lifted hands 

Shall hold the fruit of the years to be; 
Come down to the fields where the apples shine 

Like clustered stars, and the heart grows light 
Quaffing the odorous winds like wine. 

In the drowsy hush of the autumn night. 

O who would live in the corn-lands cold 

Of the treeless North, when a soil like this 
Is coining its heart into globes of gold 

And holding them up for the sun to kiss ; — 
Or who would live in the barren East, 

Or who to the deserts west would go. 
When Nature is spreading the richest feast, 

Here, that her bountiful hands can show? 

We blush no more at your Northern scorn. 

But fair in your face we can snap our thumbs, 
And over against your boasted corn 

Can pile our peaches and pears and plums ; 
Go build, if you will, your palace of maize 

High in the light of the cold north sun, 
But think of the Pyramid we shall raise 

Of golden apples, piled one by one. 

What is a king on a crumbling throne, 

With a painted queen and a pedigree, 
When matched with the man who dreams alone 

On the emerald plush, 'neath his apple-tree? 
The Lord, He loveth all men, and so 

Would lead their feet into ways divine. 
But He counteth him best who toils below 

In the peaceful shade of the Noble Vine, 



• " Egypt " is the popular designation for Southern Illinois. 



52 The Lute of Life 

Then come to the South where the vineyards are 

And the prodigal bloom of the orchard burns 
Against the blue, like a rising star, 

Wherever the raptured vision turns; 
Come down where the younger Egypt stands, 

Like a princess under her apple-tree, 
Holding aloft in her plenished hands 

The gift of the centuries yet to be. 



A PROFILE OF FALL 

Under the tree the ladder leans 

On the branches gray and old, — 
And, balanced above, the gleaner gleans 

The glittering spheres of gold ; 
While pyramids brighter than maiden's eyes, 
In the leafy aisles of the orchard rise. 

Rambo, Pippin, and Limbertwig, 

Belleflower, Russet, and Romanite, 
Dangling high on the slender sprig. 

Gleam with a quivering rainbow light, — 
And the old man nodding beneath the trees. 
Dreams of the times when he planted these. 

When a blue-eyed bride was at his side, 

In the merry summer weather. 
And life was fair as the apples there, 

That cling to the bough together ; — 
But a score of springs have showered their bloom 
Where the sunlight lies on the good wife's tomb. 

With a greedy mouth the cider-mill 

Is craunching away in the grove, — 
Its lips adrip with an amber rill 

As pure as the wine of Jove ; 
And the bees and the nut-brown boys are there, 
To sip the sweets and the sport to share. 



The Lute of Life 53 

The chestnut brown in a sheath of spears 

On the fading hillside lies, 
And sleeps till the sunlight bursts its burrs 

And shakes the night from its eyes ; 
And the walnut cloaked in Lincoln-green, 
Dreams of a winter night, I ween. 

Up in the old oak's airy hall 

The squirrel heaps his store, 
In spite of the deadly rifle-ball 

That rings at his chamber-door, — 
A merry fellow and full of glee 
Is the fur-clad knight of the hollow tree. 

All day long in his lampless log 

The lonesome rabbit lies, 
Peeking at every passing dog 

With big sardonic eyes, — 
And wondering to himself, no doubt. 
If ever the dog will find him out. 

The feathered bards have sheathed their quills, 

And closed each tuneful mouth. 
And flown like sunshine out of the hills 

To summer-lands of the South ; 
And we who sit in the shade and write, 
Sigh to them all, as they wing their flight. 



WALT WHITMAN 

Builder of numbers vast and intricate! 

No feeble fantasies are born of thee ; 

Thy poems are as potent as the sea 
Of human passion beating at the gate 
Of mortal being. — Man of the low estate — 

Forth leaping in thy soul's necessity, 

Like to some tethered giant tearing free 
The galling fetters of ignoble fate! 



54 The Lute of Life 

Gray bard ! thou seem'st a relic of the days 

When stalwart Shakespeare and Ben Jonson trod 
The wines of wisdom from the vats of God, 

And drank the round world's undiluted praise; 
And yet thou art a target for the scorn 
Of these, the very days thou dost adorn. 



CALIFORNIA 

Into the West the world is going — 

The rose-red West where the mountains are, 
And the stars dip low, and the winds are blowing 

The perfumed sails to the ports afar ; 
Where the swishing skirts of the warm Pacific 

Are stitched with silver and braided with gold— 
Where a sunset coast and a clime melHfic 

Still dimple our dreams as in days of old. 

Into the West the world is gliding — 

The marvelous West, where the Titans went 
And builded homes for the first abiding 

Of Freedom's feet, in the Occident; 
Where the Argonauts, with the later Jason, 

Set sail in search of the Golden Fleece, 
And won at last as proud a place on 

History's page as the men of Greece. 

Into the West the world is rushing — 

The wonderful West, where the orange shines. 
And the citron burns, and the grapes are blushing 

In passionate suns on a million vines ; 
Where orchards reek with a ruddy splendor 

In valleys fair as the fabled East, 
And Nature swoons in a soft surrender 

Of all things sweet for the world's last feast. 

Into the West the world is turning — 
The opulent West, where the heart and eye 



The Lute of Life 55 

Are fed with the dreams of a long sojourning, 
There, in the hush of the amber sky ; 

Where never the thunder is heard, and never 
The shock of a storm the whole year long — 

And life in the sunset-land forever 
Is only the pulse of an endless song. 



THE OLD COUNTRY ROAD* 

Where did it come from, where did it go? 
That was the question that puzzled us so 
As we waded the dust of the highway that flowed 
By the farm, like a river — the old country road. 

We stood with our hair sticking up thro' the crown 
Of our hats, as the people went up and went down, 
And we wished in our hearts, as our eyes fairly glowed, 
We could find where it came from — the old country 
road. 

We remember the peddler who came with his pack 
Adown the old highway, and never went back ; 
And we wondered what things he had seen as he strode 
From some fabulous place up the old country road. 

We remember the stage-driver's look of delight, 
And the crack of his whip as he whirled into sight. 
And we thought we could read in each glance he be- 
stowed 
A tale of strange life up the old country road. 

The movers came by like a ship in full sail. 
With a rudder behind in the shape of a pail — 
With a rollicking crew, and a cow that was towed 
With a rope on her horns, down the old country road. 

""By permission of the Ladies' Home Journal. Copyright, The Curtis 
Publishing Company. 



56 The Lute of Life 

And the gypsies — how well we remember the week 
They camped by the old covered bridge, on the creek — 
How the neighbors quit work, and the crops were un- 

hoed, 
Till the wagons drove off down the old country road. 

Oh, the top of the hill was the rim of the world, 
And the dust of the summer that over it curled 
Was the curtain that hid from our sight the abode 
Of the fairies that lived up the old country road. 

The old country road! I can see it still flow 
Down the hill of my dreams, as it did long ago. 
And I wish even now I could lay off my load 
And rest by the side of that old country road. 



"THEY HAD NO POET AND SO THEY DIED" 

In the dim waste lands of the Orient stands 

The wreck of a race so old and vast 
That the grayest legend can not lay hands 

On a single fact of its tongueless past ; 
Not even the red gold crown of a king, 

Nor a warrior's shield, nor aught beside, 
Can history out of the ruins wring, — 

They had no poet and so they died. 

Babel and Nineveh, what are they 

But feeble hints of a passing power 
That over the populous East held sway, 

In a dream of pomp, for a paltry hour? 
A toppled tower and a shattered stone, 

Where the satyrs dance and the dragons hide. 
Is all that is known of the glory flown, — 

They had no poet and so they died. 

Down where the dolorous Congo slips, 
Like a tawny snake, thro' the torrid clime. 



The Lute of Life 57 

Man's soul has slept in a cold eclipse 

On the world's dark rim since the dawn of time ; 
And if ever the ancient Nubians wrought 

A work of beauty or strength or pride, 
It was unrecorded and goes for naught, — 

They had no poet and so they died. 

And even here, in the sun-crowned West, 

In the land we love, in the vales we 've trod. 
Where the bleeding palms of the world find rest 

On Freedom's lap, at the feet of God, — 
Even here, I say, ere the earth waxed old, 

A race Titanic did once abide. 
But, ah ! their story is left untold, — 

They had no poet and so they died. 

The same old tale! and so it will be. 

As long as the heavens feed the stars, — 
As long as the tribes of men shall see 

A lesser glory in arts than wars ; 
And so let us live and labor and pray. 

As down we glide with the darkling tide, 
That never a singer of us may say, 

"They had no poet and so they died." 



CHARLEY GIBBS 

They 's jes' one feller in the world, an' only one, 'at I 

Hev ketched myse'f a-envyin' a little on the sly, 

An' that is Charley Gibbs, — an' ef ye reelly keer to 

know 
Who Charley is, an' w^hat it is 'at agytates me so, 
r 11 tell ye, confidential-like, an' you kin then decide 
The p'int 'at I 'm a-drivin' at, an' see ef I hev lied. 

W'y this 'ere Gibbs— this Charley Gibbs— 'at I 'm al- 

ludin' to, 
'S 'bout the mos' oncommon kind o' chap I ever knew ; 



58 The Lute of Life 

I see'd 'im when a baby, an' I see 'im when a man, 
An' I am here to state 'at he is built upon a plan 
'At differs frum the av'rage run o' people nowadays. 
Not in his looks, so overly-as-much, ez in his ways. 

This Gibbs, he hain't no scholar ner philosopher, an' 

I 've got an idee in my head, an' can't git rid o' it, 
That he 's about the shrewdes' chap 'at ever hopped 

a clod, 
Tho' willin' to admit, perhaps, he 's jes' a trifle odd 
In some respec's, ez ever' feller is who 's got the grit 
To tackle trouble when it comes an' git the best o' it. 

Now, take an' size 'im up an' down, — I mean this 

Charley Gibbs,— 
An' when ye 've measured round his head, w'y, reach 

around his ribs 
An' feel his happy heart a-beatin' time to all he sings, 
Like a medder-lark in Aprile, with the mornin' on its 

wings, — 
An' warm yer ban's ag'in his blood a-scamperin' along 
Like a crick ferever flowin' in the summer uv his song. 

Plague-gone it ! when he wuz a boy, an' bed the rheu- 

matiz 
'At twisted into awful knots them spindlin' shanks o' 

his — 
I say, when them afflictions bed the youngster in the'r 

grip, 
It beat the dickens how the fun kep' bilin' frum his lip; 
W'y, he preached a braver sermon to the human heart, 

I guess. 
Than any healthy parson finds it easy to express. 

In the coldest days o' winter, when us fellers round 

the stove 
Is a-findin' fault with Providence, an' questionin' His 

love. 



The Lute of Life 59 

We look out thro' the winder, an' we hear somebody 

smg,_ 
Like a jaybird in a graveyard, ez much ez anything, — ' 
An' blame it all ! it 's alius Gibbs, an' when he shuffles 

in 
Our tribbelations scatter in the glitter uv his grin. 

When ever'body on the street 's a-growlin' with the 

"blues," 
Ye '11 see him cuttin' didoes jes' to beat the very Jews, 
Er crackin' jokes, er whisslin' while the other fellers 

whine, — 
It 's jes' his way — this Charley Gibbs — he 's one in 

ninety-nine ; — 
He could n't he'p it ef he tried ! fer that air soul o' his 
Jes' looks upon the world an' smiles — an' takes it ez 

it is! 

They say it 's no oncommon thing fer him, when comin' 

back 
With his shotgun on his shoulder an' the game inside 

his sack, 
To leave a pra'ry-chicken er a squirrel in the door 
O' some neglected widder that is alius sick an' pore, — 
An' ez he heels it home acrosst the hollers, growin' dim, 
The prayers o' that pore womern is a-chasin' after him. 

He 's got no eddication much — his purse is purty slack. 
An' the clothes is mighty common he 's a-wearin' on 

his back ; 
He hain't got much religion o' the kind we 're readin' 

uv. 
An' yit it seems to me 'at God hez soaked him in His 

love, 
An' left him fer a sign-board by the road we hev to go. 
To teach us joy an' patience ez we journey here below. 

Now, these is jes' the reasons, ez ye understan', 'at I 
Hev ketched myse'f a-envyin' this feller on the sly ; 



6o The Lute of Life 

An' ef I git to glory first, an' find no Charley there, 
I '11 try to git a furlow an' come down the golden 

stair, 
Jes' to see 'im shake his foot ag'in, an' hear 'is latest 

joke, 
With the same ol' crowd around 'im, in the same to- 

backer-smoke. 



A SLIVER FROM THE SPHINX 

Thou broken syllable blown far a-west — 
Blown hither over bleak, abysmal seas 
From that grim mystery of mysteries 

That frets the world, still keeping unconfest 

The secrets of the aeons in her breast ! 
Time, bending there upon his tired knees 
By that dumb wonder of dead centuries. 

Covers his face, appalled at his own jest! 

The petty generations pause and pelt 

The sleepless brute with vain importunings, 
Seeking to solve the riddle as she stands ; 
Beneath her changeless stare the ages melt 

Like snowflakes, and the Simoon's sullen wings 
Muffle her silence with the Libyan sands. 



TO JOAQUIN MILLER 

(the: poet of the; sierras) 

O master of melodies, piping a-west, 
O builder of numbers delectably new. 
In truth, I would rather tip hat to you 
Than sit at a banquet, a king's sole guest ; — 
To you, O Miller, who sing of the seas. 

Of the sunset-lands, and the isles that lie 

In the desolate wastes by the dim Andes — 

To you, brave poet, my heart draws nigh. 



The Lute of Life 6i 



What mystical, marvelous measures are yours, 
The newest and truest of songs yet sung 
By a mountaineer in his mother-tongue, 
So daringly free and so full of force ! 
Like a sail on a sea that sings and flows, 
My fancy floats on your fluent rhyme 
Till the fair earth seems but a full-blown rose, 
Plucked from a dream, in the rare June time. 

Whether by Shasta's snows, or whether 
Adrift in Venice, the charm still clings 
To the one sure cadence of him who sings 
On the Oregon hills or the Highland heather ; 
There is ever a note we can not mistake, 

As strong as the chime of the sea, or strong 
As the fierce staccatos the cascades make, 
In every breath of your wild, sweet song. 

Never the foot of a man shall press 
The dark Sierras in days to come, 
But his pulse will leap, as his proud lips hum 
Some song you sang in the wilderness ; 
As long as the river shall rhyme, — as long 
As Blanco sits with her feet in the sea, — 
As long as the soul is aroused with song, 
Your name shall bide and your fame shall be. 



LOYALTY OF NATURE 

Where are they now, those friends of mine, 
Who shared my walnuts and my wine? 
Across the threshold of my door 
They clasp my ready hand no more. 

The summer blossoms rise and fall, 
The concords purple on the wall — 
The robin greets the breaking day, 
And from the locust laughs the jay. 



62 The Lute of Life 



The leaves, the grasses, and the grain, 
In prompt profusion come again — 
Even the wayside weeds we spurn 
Respect their promise and return. 

Some uninvited instinct sends 
To cheer us, these old-fashioned friends, 
Whose homely sympathies find speech 
In language love alone can teach. 

Man, only, of the countless train 
Is prone to prove his promise vain; 
The hollyhock, the humble-bee, 
Are truer to their pledge than he. 

No more I murmur — every day 

I watch the winds and waters play. 

Contented, after all, to find 

That Nature's ways, at least, are kind. 



THWARTED 

At midnight, in an autumn desolate, 

Intent to do an injury, I arose 

And called upon the deadliest of my foes, 
So fearful was the fury of my hate. 
Malevolent as some avenging fate, 

I sped by moonlight thro' the garden-close, 

By blighted poppy and by ruined rose, 
And stood at last beside my victim's gate. 

A dim light burned within — softly and still 
I crept close up against the window-sill, 

And paused — then peering thro' the lighted pane, 
I reeled, as one transfixed at heart and brain, 
For there, God's mercy! on his bended knee, 
I heard my foe — my neighbor — pray for me! 



The Lute of Life 63 



ON EASY STREET 



Do you ever go down on Easy Street, 

In the lullaby hush of the day's decline, 
When everybody you chance to meet 

Has a languid air and a look supine; 

Where even the lights have a lazy shine, 
And the breezes drowse as they idle by, — 

Where the people dally and drink and dine. 
From dusk till the noon of night is nigh ? 

Dreamily filters the starlight through 

The leaves a-swoon in the summer heat; 
And the work-a-day world lies out of view 

Beyond the Eden of Easy Street; 

Never the sound of dancing feet 
Disturbs the languorous, lulling hours 

That loll in the lap of that dim retreat, 
As soft as the moon on the terrace flowers. 

Down in the dusk where the shadows fall, 
Under the glimmer of twinkling lights. 

We hear the laughter, and that is all, 
Of children a-romp in the rosy nights, — 
pr a kiss, mayhap, when a lover plights 

His troth, in a chrism of lips that meet, — 
Ah, never a fancy hath finer flights 

Than mine, in its journey to Easy Street. 

A RETROSPECT 

Come back, O happy days, 
With your mirth and roundelays — 
With the music and the laughter 
Of the world's old-fashioned ways, 
When our hearts were full and free 
And all that we could see 
Was the glad, alluring glimmer 
Of the golden time to be. 



64 The Lute of Life 

Come back, O happy springs, 
With your rainbows and your wings, 
With the dewdrops and the roses, 
And the unremembered things 
That led our feet astray 
Through the fields, and far away 
To the woodlands, where the waters 
Warbled seaward all the day. 

Come back, O summer-time, 
With the rapture and the rhyme 
Of the songs that used to charm us 
In the passion of our prime, — 
When the murmur of the dove 
On the drowsy hills above 
Was mingled with the melody 
Of lips we used to love. 

Come back, O autumn brown, 
Shake all your walnuts down, 
And call unto the hills again 
The truants of the town ; 
Bring back the trailing vine. 
Over-weighted with its wine 
Tied up in fairy flagons 
For the thirsty lips like mine. 

Come back, O happy nights, 

With your dreams and your delights, 

And all the mellow lullabies 

That memory recites ; 

Turn back the sliding sand, 

And restore the vanished hand 

Whose ever-tender touches 

Love alone can understand. 

Come back, come back to me, 
O my youth, and let us be 
Companions for a day again, 



The Lute of Life 65 

To ramble far and free 
Over meadow-lands we knew 
When the winds of morning blew, 
And the bird-wings gleamed above us 
Like the blooms we wandered through. 



ESAU 

The saddest chapters in the Holy Book 

Are those that tell of Esau, guileless, poor, 
The victim of the wiles of her who bore 

Him, and a brother's turptitude who took, 

With impious hand, his birthright, and forsook 
The boy whose heart was honest to the core. 
To me the sunburnt Esau stands for more. 

Among his Bedouins by the mountain brook, 

Than does the dubious memory of him 

Who filched his father's blessings, and became 

The chief of Israel. — Tho' rough and grim. 
There is no shadow of a wretch's shame 
Upon the soul of Esau, — yet his name 

For moral darkness seems a synonym. 



WHEN MARY WENT TO BETHLEHEM 

O wondrous maid of Galilee! 

Again across our vision sweeps 
That far December dawn, when she 

Came slowly down the terraced steeps 
Of Nazareth. The wind blew chill, — 

No lily nodded on its stem; 
No bird was heard on any hill, 

When Mary went to Bethlehem. 

Against the gale her long gold hair 

Streamed radiantly, as she rode 
Along the winding valley, where 



66 T he Lute of Life 

The wintry waves of Jordan flowed ; 
While humbly at her side there strode 

An heir to David's diadem, 
Whose kindly face with honor glowed, 

When Mary went to Bethlehem. 

And ever as they fared, the twain 

With uncomplaining patience bore 
The cruel taunt and cold disdain 

The haughty visit on the poor; 
Nor any warm, fraternal hand 

Of sympathy was reached to them ; 
They passed in silence through the land. 

When Mary went to Bethlehem. 

O wondrous maid of Galilee! 

The vision fades, and in the sky 
A star burns, marvelous to see, 

Above the circling hills thereby; 
And hark! the drowsy herdsmen wake 

To hear love's noblest apothegm, — 
"Peace and good-will," the angels spake. 

When Mary went to Bethlehem. 

The dream dissolves, — another scene 

With nobler hope the world inspires, — 
On Judah's plains the Nazarene 

Is building love's diviner fires ; 
A fuller splendor fills the earth, 

Whose light out-lusters every gem, 
Since shepherds hailed the lowly birth. 

When Mary went to Bethlehem. 



THE HUNTER'S MOON 

Ho, ye lads of the harvest, ho! 

The leaves lie dead in the lands below. 

And the gray bluffs beckon our feet afar 



The Lute of Life (^-j 

To the vales where the prowling foxes are ; 
The winds are hushed on the winding slopes, 
And down in the hollow the woodchuck mopes — 
The sedge-grass snaps by the dry lagoon, 
And the hills laugh under the Hunter's Moon, 

Ho, ye lads of the harvest, ho! 
Come with horses and hounds, and go 
Where the glens are dark and the rocks are bare. 
And the frost is crisp in the midnight air — 
Where the vaulting vines and the creeping rills 
Give a spectral charm to the sleeping hills — 
Where the wild game wanders, and, late or soon, 
We '11 follow him far in the Hunter's Moon. 

Under the light of the Hunter's Moon 

The clattering hoofs of our steeds keep tune 

To the deep'ning bay of the distant hounds, 

That out of the echoing night resounds 

As the fur-clad bandits bound away 

Over the bluffs and the boulders gray. 

To the farthest north, where the horn'd owls croon, 

From the topmost crags, to the Hunter's Moon. 

The stars are low, and the chase is long. 
But the breath of the breeze and the river's song 
Sink into the breast of the brooding night. 
As soft as the dream of an old delight. 
While the changing shades of the shifting woods 
Make sombre the hearts of the solitudes, 
As we gallop away thro' the forest, strewn 
With the dead, red leaves of the Hunter's Moon. 

When the quarry lies on the hills of morn, 
And the far, faint blast of the hunter's horn 
Is heard in the wakening lands below. 
We swing to the saddles and homeward go- 
Winding along by the river's brim. 
Cleaving the mists of the daybreak dim. 



68 The Lute of Life 



Merrily trilling an old love rune, 

In the waning light of the Hunter's Moon. 



UNCLE DAVE 

[Inscribed to David S. Turner, zvho in his semi-daily 
trips from his village residence to his farm, three- 
quarters of a mile away, has walked 38,^25 miles, 
a distance equal to once and a half the circum- 
ference of the earth, carrying 51,100 gallons of 
milk.] 

Between his kitchen and his cow, 
With ruddy cheeks and "frosty pow," 
Plods Uncle Dave, while on his face 
The sunlight finds a resting-place, 
And from his lips forever flow 
The love-lays of the Long Ago. 

The grasses by the roadside wave 
A fond salute to Uncle Dave; 
And underneath the hedgerow dim 
An upright rabbit laughs at him, 
While from the fence a friendly jay 
His glad "good-morning" pipes away. 

The children where he passes run 
To meet him when the day is done, 
And listen to his cheery words. 
As sweet to them as songs of birds ; 
No prince — no knight — no warrior brave, 
Could win their hearts like Uncle Dave. 

Between his kitchen and his cow 
His steps are growing feebler now, 
And soon the cadence of his feet 
Will echo in the Golden Street, — 
Soon Eden's wooing winds will wave 
The silver locks of Uncle Dave. 



The Lute of Life 69 



WHEN JIMMY COMES FROM SCHOOL* 

When Jimmy comes from school at four, 
J-e-r-u-s-a-1-e-m ! how things begin 
To whirl and buzz and bang and spin. 

And brighten up from roof to floor; 
The dog that all day long has lain 

Upon the back porch, wags his tail, 
And leaps and barks, and begs again 

The last scrap in the dinner pail, 

When Jimmy comes from school. 

The cupboard latches clink a tune, 

And mother from her knitting stirs 

To tell that hungry boy of hers 
That supper will be ready soon ; 

And then a slab of pie he takes, 
A cooky, and a quince or two, 

And for the breezy barnyard breaks. 
Where everything cries "How d'y do!" 
When Jimmy comes from school. 

The rooster on the garden fence 

Struts up and down and crows and crows. 
As if he knows, or thinks he knows. 

He, too, is of some consequence; 
The guineas join the chorus, too, 

And just beside the window-sill 
The redbird, swinging out of view 

On his light perch, begins to trill. 
When Jimmy comes from school. 

When Jimmy comes from school, take care! 
Our hearts begin to throb and quake 
With life and joy, and every ache 

Is gone before we are aware ; 



• By permission of the Ladies' Home Journal. Copyright, The Curtis 
Publishing Company. 



70 The Lute of Life 

The earth takes on a richer hue, 
A softer Hght falls on the flowers, 

And overhead a brighter blue 
Seems bent above this world of ours, 
When Jimmy comes from school. 



JULY IN THE WEST 

DAY 

A rhythm of reapers ; a flashing 
Of steels in the meadows ; a lashing 
Of sheaves in the wheatlands ; a glitter 
Of grain-builded streets, and a twitter 
O birds in a motionless sky, — 
And that is July! 

A rustle of corn-leaves ; a tinkle 
Of bells on the hills ; a twinkle 
Of sheep in the lowlands ; a bevy 
Of bees where the clover is heavy ; 
A butterfly blundering by, — 
And that is July! 

NIGHT 

A moon-flood prairie; a straying 
Of light-hearted lovers; a baying 
Of far-away watch-dogs; a dreaming 
Of brown-fisted farmers ; a gleaming 
Of fire-flies eddying nigh, — 
And that is July! 

A babble of brooks that deliver 
Their flower-purfled waves to the river; 
A moan in the marshes; in thickets, 
A dolorous droning of crickets, 
Attuned to a whippoorwill's cry, — 
And that is July! 



The Lute of Life 71 



WINTER NIGHT ON THE FARM 

Is there aught in life we prize 
Like the Hght of home that lies 
Over us when Winter shakes 
From the North his frosty flakes, — 
When the chill winds at the pane 
Beat their icy wings in vain? 
Is there any joy on earth 
Like to that which findeth birth 
By the firelight, snug and warm, 
Of the old home on the farm? 

Undisturbed, and far from town, 

Our ambitions narrow down 
To a nest of small desires 
Bounded by the evening's fires ; 

All the passions of the year 

Pass away in laughter here. 
Where the saucy kettle sings. 
And the sturdy back-log flings 

The defiance of its glance 

To the winds as they advance. 

Here the magic pop-corn snaps 
Into little snowy caps 

For the chubby hands that ache 
In their rapture to partake; 
Here the pippins, plump and sleek, 
Piled up in the pantry, speak, 
Plain as any mortal may, 
Of the summer passed away, — 
Bringing back, to nights like these, 
Bird-songs and the hum of bees. 

Hickory-nuts and walnuts, too. 
Break their hearts for me and you, — 
Yield their very souls to make 
Pleasure for the children's sake ; 



72 The Lute of Life 

And the cider's kindly cup 

Offers its keen spirit up 
On the altar of good cheer, 
In this wild night of the year — 

In this night when Love and Mirth 

Hold their court around the hearth. 

Out with all new-fangled toys ! 
Country girls and country boys, 
Blest with wholesome appetites. 
Find their measure of delights 
Where the pound-cake's pyramid 
Rises like a mosque amid 
Aromatic streets, that lie 
Jelly-fringed and paved with pie; 
Never Bagdad's splendors bent 
Over homes of more content. 

Keep us ever thus, we cry. 
Not too low and not too high; 
Teach us to appreciate 
Just the store of our estate; 
Hold in check the common greed 
For all things beyond our need; 
Measure unto every one 
Fair desert of shower and sun, 
And with Love's enfolding arm 
Shield our home-life on the farm. 



Prove, if you can, that we are not dead; 

Prove that life is all that it seems; 
Prove that the planet on which we tread 

Is anything more than a nest of dreams ; 
Prove that the bluebird's plume is blue, — 
Then prove, if you can, that the proof is true. 



The Lute of Life 72, 



AFFINITY 

We two were lovers in some alien sphere, 
Some morning planet, ere the earth had spun 
Its first gold ribbon round the ardent sun ; 

And we were plighted, but were parted ere 

The first defiant star had set his spear 
Against old Chaos — ere the winds had run 
Their wild first races, or the tides had won 

The moon's love, sobbing in her lonesome ear. 

We trod the troubled aeons far apart. 
Nor any message came from her to me 
To light my way across the lampless vast. 
To-night we met again, O doubting heart. 
Be still ! God shapes His purposes, and we, 
Twin pilgrims of the void, touch lips at last. 



'WAY DOWN IN SPICE VALLEY 

'Way down in Spice Valley I 'm drifting to-night, 
On a river of dreams, with a heart that is light 
As the lilt of the woodlark a-tilt on the tree 
By the spot where my cot in that vale used to be — 
When life was a lily just opening its eye 
To the dew of the dawn and the blue of the sky, 
'Way down in Spice Valley. 

'Way down in Spice Valley, in fancy, I see 
The bloom of the clover still beck'ning the bee — 
The low-leaning orchards, the herds on the hill. 
And the road, like a ribbon unspooled, to the mill ; 
Still, still, in my dream, I can see the old stream. 
And the ford where the farmer drove over his team, 
'Way down in Spice Valley. 

'Way down in Spice Valley, Old Time falls asleep, 
With his head on the sward, in a slumber so deep 
That the birds can not wake him with melodies blithe, 



74 The Lute of Life 

And the long valley-grasses grow over his scythe, — 
And Summer kneels down, in her long golden gown, 
On a carpet of green, where the skies never frown, 
'Way down in Spice Valley. 

'Way down in Spice Valley, my memory goes. 
With a sigh like the sob of the river that flows 
In that far-away vale, — and I pray in my dream 
To be borne, when I die, to that beautiful stream, 
And tenderly laid in the welcoming shade 
Of the wide-spreading woods, where I wandered and 
played, 

'Way down in Spice Valley. 



BLONDE AND BRUNETTE 

(to ADA B. SISSON AND MACY CURTIS) 

eyes that are brown, and O eyes that are blue, 
This garland of greeting I send unto you ; 

1 tie my love up in two packages, hark ! 

With a ribbon that 's blue and a ribbon that 's dark. 

Symbolic of eyes that are piercing my dreams 

In the silence of night with their scintillant beams. 

To eyes that are Blue and to eyes that are Brown, 

I lift up by hat, as I lean my head down, 

In a slavish surrender of body and mind 

To the Blue and the Brown in their beauty combined ; — 

For these are "my colors forever and aye, 

One dark as the night and one light as the day. 

A kiss for the lid of the eye that is Blue, 

When the eye that is Brown has escaped from my view ; 

And one for the lid of the eye that is Brown, 

When the eye that is Blue has been called out of town ; 

Alas ! it is hard for a mortal to choose — 

The ravishing Browns or the rapturous Blues. 



The Lute of Life 75 

Come pledge me a health to the Eye that is Blue 
As the sky overhead when the sun filters through ; 
Come pledge me a glass to the Eye that is Brown, 
That gleams when the rest of the planets are down; 
Then fill up another — a toast to the two, 
The riotous Brown and the rollicking Blue. 



TO MY LADY NICOTINA 

To thee, my brown sultana, would I bring 
The frankincense of song's sweet offering, 
And at my lady's sovereign feet would kneel — 
A willing slave in chains of pleasing steel. 

O Nicotina ! unto me thou art 

The empress of a dynasty apart, 

Where dwell sweet dreams, and drowsy poppies shine 

By lonely lakes, in lotos-lands divine. 

Within the circling shadows of thy tents 
Thy siren smile confuses every sense ; 
And Age and Youth — thy rival devotees — 
Heap high their tributes at thy royal knees. 

Beneath the spell of thy mesmeric glance 
Old Time forgets his scythe, and leads the dance: 
Tho' nations cry for succor, what care we? 
Thy beauty conquers, and we bide with thee. 

In every land, on every sea and shore, 
Men lift their eyes to laud thee and adore; 
For thee a thousand Antonys have hurled 
Aside the mighty kingdoms of this world. 

Not in the loveless East thy life began — 

Thou art, my lady, all American; 

The Flower of Conquest, under whose warm lips 

The knightly Raleigh nigh forsook his ships. 



']6 The Lute of Life 

Thy breath is like to soothing odors blown 
From drowsy islands, lulled by seas unknown, 
In purple sunsets where long summers dream, 
And nothing truly is, but all things seem. 

Thou art the dusky empress unto whom 
Dictators bow and despots dip their plume. 
Bewildered at the potency that lies 
Forever regnant in thy heart and eyes. 

In thy pavilions cometh such repose 
As none who lives, except thy lover, knows ; 
By night or day, beneath thy woven charms. 
He rests serenely whom thy wooing warms. 

No fabled goddess ever yet did start 

Such fires of passion in the human heart 

As thou, O tawny daughter of the West, 

Hast fanned to flame within thy suitor's breast. 

Ah, Lady Nicotina! from thy shrine 
Some lips may stray, but never these of mine- 
Not while the sweetness of thy breath remains 
To soothe my heart and tranquilize my pains. 



THE DESERTED INN* 

It stands all alone like a goblin in gray. 
The old-fashioned inn of a pioneer day. 
In a land so forlorn and forgotten, it seems 
Like a wraith of the past rising into our dreams ; 
Its glories have vanished, and only the ghost 
Of a sign-board now creaks on its desolate post. 
Recalling a time when all hearts were akin 
As they rested a night in that welcoming inn. 

* By permission of the Ladies'* Home Journal. Copyright, The Curtia 
Publishing Company. 



The Lute of Life 'Tj 

The patient old well-sweep that knelt like a nun, 
And lifted cool draughts to the lips of each one, 
Is gone from the place, and its curbing of stone 
Is a clump of decay, with rank weeds overgrown ; 
And where the red barn with its weathercock rose 
On the crest of the hill, now the v/ild ivy grows, 
And only the shade of the tall chincapin 
Remaineth unchanged at the old country inn. 

The wind whistles shrill through the wide-open doors. 
And lizards keep house on the moldering floors ; 
The kitchen is cold, and the hall is as still 
As the heart of the hostess, out there on the hill ; 
The fire-place that roared in the long winter night, 
When the wine circled round, and the laughter was 

light, 
Is a mass of gray stones, and the garret-rats play 
Hide-and-seek on the stairs in the glare of the day. 

No longer the host hobbles down from his rest 
In the porch's cool shadow, to welcome his guest 
With a smile of delight, and a grasp of the hand. 
And a glance of the eye that no heart could withstand. 
When the long rains of autumn set in from the west 
The mirth of the landlord was broadest and best. 
And the stranger who paused, over night, never knew 
If the clock on the mantel struck ten or struck two. 

Oh, the songs they would sing, and the tales they would 

spin, 
As they lounged in the light of the old country inn. 
But a day came at last when the stage brought no load 
To the gate, as it rolled up the long, dusty road. 
And lo! at the sunrise a shrill whistle blew 
O'er the hills — and the old yielded place to the new — 
And a merciless age with its discord and din 
Made wreck, as it passed, of the pioneer inn. 



7^ The Lute of Life 

IN DAYS TO COME 

(to JAM^S WHITCOMB RIIvKy) 

In days to come, when you and I 
Wax faint and frail, and heart-fires die, 

And tinkHng rhymes no more obey 

The wooing Hps of yesterday, 
How slowly will the hours go by ! 
When we have drained our song-cups dry, 
My comrade, shall we sit and sigh, 

Childlike, o'er joys too sweet to stay, 
In days to come ? 

Nay ! nay ! we '11 give Old Time the lie, 
And, thatched with three-score years, we '11 try 
A rondeau or a roundelay 
As long as any lute-string may 
To our light touches make reply — 
In days to come. 

RILEY'S RESPONSE 

In days to come — whatever ache 
Of age shall rack our bones, or quake 
Our slackened sinews — whate'er grip 
Rheumatic catch us i' the hip, — 
We, each one for the other's sake. 
Will of our very wailings make 
Such quips of song as well may shake 
The spasm'd corners from the lip — 
In days to come. 

Ho! ho! how our old hearts shall rake 
The past up ! — how our dry eyes slake 
Their sight upon the dewy drip 
Of juicy-ripe companionship, 
And blink stars from the blind opaque — 
In days to come. 

—J. W. R. 



The Lute of Life 



79 



THE SADDEST HOUR 
The saddest hour is not the hour that brings 
A hint of death upon its direful wings; 
Neither is it the fearful moment when 
Our faith first wavers in our fellow-men ; — 
The saddest hour is not the hour in which 
We wake to find ourselves no longer rich ; 
Nor is it that unhappy time wherein 
We feel the first keen penalty of sin. 

'T is not the moment when some loved one spurns 
The tender passion in our breast that burns ; 

Nor that in which a doting parent's heart 

Is stricken, when home ties are torn apart ; 
Nay ! nay ! the saddest hour that can oppress 
The soul is when, in utter hopelessness, 

No mercy answers its appealing cry 

As it must witness its ideals die. 

BALLADE OF OLD POETS 
How idle are the songs we sing. 

When matched with those immortal lays 
That, organ-like, rose thundering. 

And shook the world in other days ! 

We are as parrots, daws, and jays, 
Who can but jabber, mock, and jest. 

And pander to the public praise — 
The old-time poets were the best. 

Our petty passions clutch and cling 

To every passing theme that pays — 
A silly rondeau's ting-a-ling, 

Or villanelle, is all the craze ; 

Shelley is shunned, and Byron's bays 
Are losing lustre, east and west, 

And yet the fact remains, always, 
The old-time poets were the best. 



8o The Lute of Life 



How little zeal we singers bring 

To fire the spirit and upraise 
The sad-faced masses groveling 

In rayless gloom, beyond our gaze ! 

Our tuneful chatter but betrays 
The vacant mind, the hardened breast, 

In which the finer sense decays — 
The old-time poets were the best. 

l'Envoi 

Brothers ! the saddest, sorriest phase 
Of modern song is here confess'd, 

Whose truth not any tongue gainsays- 
The old-time poets were the best. 



NOVEMBER DOWN THE WABASH 

Upon the Wabash hills, and down 
The lonesome glens, the leaves are brown 
With early frost, and gray birds skim 
The cooling waters, and the slim 
Ungartered willows stand knee-deep 
Along the river's edge, and weep 
To see the summer's parting gleam 
Pass, like a shadow, down the stream, 
Or like the memory of one 
We loved in youth and doted on. 

Silence is on the Wabash hills, 
Save where a lonely bluebird trills 
Upon the windy oak, or where 
The nuts drip from the branches bare, 
Or squirrels chatter in the sun; — 
A hush, as if all life were done, 
Reigns thro' the woods ; the waters lie 
So dead and motionless, the sky 
Leans dolorously down, as though 
To meet its mirrored self below. 



The Lute of Life 



No boyish laughter pours along 

The Wabash hills, — no lover's song 

Re-echoes up the tangled ways 

As in the long, glad summer days ; 

No barefoot lads, with hook and rod. 

Beside the shadowy waters plod, — 

No maids come down to twine and strew 

With valley-flowers the old canoe, — 

Only a blind owl floating by, 

And far clouds driving up the sky. 

Thus, like a sombre shadow, broods 

November o'er the Wabash woods ; 

Far to the south the slanting sun 

Has gone, and Winter soon will run 

His sledges up the frozen heights, — 

And grates will glow, and long dark nights 

Will trance the drowsy brain with dreams 

Of other days, — and fitful gleams 

Of Beauty will dissolve the gloom 

In seas of summer warmth and bloom 



THE SWEETHEART I NEVER HAVE SEEN 

O here 's to the sweetheart I never have seen, 
The one fairest woman — my idol, my queen — 
Who thralls me with mystery, calls me her own. 
And sweeps up the stairs of my heart to her throne. 
With a pride of possession so charmingly sweet 
That I smile at the confident sound of her feet, 
As I reach out my arms with a yearning that she 
Understands as she sinks on my welcoming knee, 
With a look so appealing, so fond and serene, — 
The dear little sweetheart I never have seen. 

Her eyes are the eyes of a dove, and her mouth 
Is a hint of old Egypt — a dream of the South — 
As it lies like an island of rubies a-shine 



82 The Lute of Life 

In a sea of warm lilies — and all of them mine ! 
No chisel of Athens — no graver of Rome — 
No master abroad, and no painter at home, 
E'er colored a Venus or carved a Faustine 
As fair as my sweetheart I never have seen. 

Her voice is a lute, and the coil of her arm 
Is a cadence of love, as she cuddles her warm 
Girlish head on my breast, while her lips seek my own 
With a rapture that 's only an answering tone ; — 
I have gazed on the beauty — have feasted my eyes 
On the fairest of earth, of all climates and skies ; 
But Greece hath no Helen, and Egypt no queen, 
To match with my sweetheart I never have seen. 



THE BATHER* 

No light can limn — no art can trace — 

The haunting beauty of her face 

As, standing where the morning spills 

Its splendor on the purpling hills, 

She leans against the terrace-stone 

Beside a garden overblown 

With flowers most marvelously fair 

Amidst the fountains flashing there — 

A scene which, robbed of her, would seem 

A sweet, but most imperfect, dream. 

Released from the embracing pool, 
Her round, white body, chaste and cool. 
Half-hidden by the burnished gold 
Of falling tresses, fold on fold, 
Leans like a marble Naiad drawn 
To lure the ardent eyes of Dawn — 
Or like a dream of symmetry 



■"By Permission of the Smart Set Magazine. Copyright, Bss Bss 
Publishing Company. 



The Lute of Life 83 



Which but the pure in heart may see, 
And see but once, and then confess 
That heaven holds less loveliness. 

To see the envious crystals drip. 
Reluctant, from her crimson lip — 
To mark the rival day-beams place 
The first warm kisses on her face — 
To note the racing breezes test 
Their fleetness, but to reach her breast- 
To see contending roses seek 
Expression in her velvet cheek — 
To watch the jealous lilies swim 
And loll against her snowy limb — 
These, these, are but the outward hints 
Of all the raptures, graces, tints. 
Which, like some precious Orient pearl. 
Accent the beauty of the girl — 
Or but reflect in dazzling guise 
The soul, the love within her eyes — 
The light, the music, and the mirth. 
That make our spirits cling to earth. 



SYMBOLS 

What is forgetfulness, my love? 

The white wing of a passing dove — • 
The twilight folding of a flower — 
The fleeting of a friendly hour — 

The falling of autumnal leaves — • 

The flight of swallows from the eaves ; 
The sun itself, my dear, when setting. 
Is Love's best semblance of forgetting. 

What is remembrance? 'Tis, my sweet. 
The music of returning feet — 
The rare re-opening of a rose — 
A frozen stream again that flows — 



84 The Lute of Life 

A lone star struggling through the dark- 
The fluting of the dawn's first lark; — 
The rising sun — the quickening spring, 
Are symbols of remembering. 



WILLIAM HENRY RAGAN 

A name not quite so rhythmic and poetical, perchance, 
As some that glitter on the page of fable and romance, 
And yet upon my memory it sheds as fair a light 
As that of any mythic prince or mediaeval knight, 
Whose chiefest glory, haply, was the sacking of a town, 
The pillage of a province, or the stealing of a crown. 

No gilded armor flashes on the hero that I sing. 
No deeds of doubtful honor upon his record cling, — 
No legend of a selfish act is coupled with his name. 
No trumpeter has gone before, his virtues to proclaim ; 
He walks the world — my hero — with a dignifying grace 
That speaks in every action and is felt in every place. 

A citizen as modest as a girl, — and yet a man 

With the spirit of a scientist to travel in the van 

And lead the peaceful brotherhood, whose holy mission 

seems 
To make the earth as rosy as the garden of our 

dreams — 
To sow the world with beauty, and to chronicle in 

flowers 
The inspirations hidden in this busy life of ours. 

From the orchard-lands of boyhood to the crimson 

slope of death. 
He went — my quiet hero — when the bravest held his 

breath ; 
He rode away to battle with the same unselfish zeal 
That found its best expression in the level lines of 

steel, 



The Lute of Life 85 

When the canopy of heaven had been robbed of every 

star 
By the smoke of carnage rolling from the furnaces of 

war. 

Yet never man of blood is he, but rather one in whom 
The gentler virtues germinate — the milder manners 

bloom ; 
A soul attuned to sympathy — a heart made kind to bless 
The helpless in their weakness and the lowly in dis- 
tress ; — 
A courtier of Nature, — a counselor who feels 
The stress of the affliction that his ministration heals. 

His name may not be written on the scroll with those 

who wake 
The plaudits of the people with the rattle-box they 

shake ; — 
But in the Book Eternal where the brighter few appear 
Of those who loved their fellow-men and shared their 

burdens here, 
The name of Ragan will be writ in characters of light 
Along with that of Galahad, the purest-hearted knight. 



WHEN PANSY PLAYS THE VIOLIN 

The lake is clear, the night is still, 

The moonlight on the water lies; 
We drop the oars and drift at will. 

Communing only with our eyes; 
At either side, as on we float. 

By drowsy islands dimly scanned, 
The water-lilies fringe the boat 

Like sails blown out of fairyland: — 
Ah, then the discord and the din 
That haunt the heart are hushed within, 
When Pansy plays the violin. 



86 The Lute of Life 



When Pansy plays the violin, 

As o'er the wooing- waves we go, 
Beneath her coyly-drooping chin 

There Hes a bank of sloping snow. 
Half-hidden by the instrument 

That rapturously poises there 
And whispers its divine content 

In many a sweet, enchanting air: — 
How quick the cares of life begin 
To fade, as we float out and in, 
When Pansy plays the violin ! 

Fleet after fleet of lilies swim 

Along our wake, as on and on 
We drift against the purple rim 

Of midnight, till the moon is gone ; 
O eyes of blue, and hair of gold, 

And carven lips up-curved to kiss! 
The world is old, and time is old, 

But, somehow, true-love never is ; — 
And Cupid, cunning harlequin. 
Too well he knows his wiles will win, 
When Pansy plays the violin. 



A LETTER TO JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

Dear Jamesy: — 

I miss you, old boy, as the years 
Drop away like the drip of my tears. 

I miss the brave voice, and the touch 
Of the hand that I prized overmuch. 

I miss the old raptures that woke 
In my soul at the praises you spoke. 

I miss the glad rhymes that we writ, 
With their fragrance of love and of wit. 



The Lute of Life S7 



I miss the wild yarns that we spun, 
And the laughter that followed each one. 

I miss the bright midnights that grew 
Into blossoms of mirth as they flew. 

I miss the hale songs that were blent 
Over beakers that blushed as they went. 

I miss the old books that we read, 

On our backs, with the lamp at our head. 

But most do I miss, as I write. 
Some trick of expression to-night. 

I miss the light measures that rolled 
Into ripples of rhyme, as of old. 

But in our souls' channels, old friend 
The rhythmical currents still blend. 

And over the rim of the years, 
And under a rainbow of tears, 

We '11 wed our warm palms with a smile. 
As we think of the joy — afterwhile. 



TO JESSIE 

I can not — will not — dare not think 
That He who joined your soul to mine 

Will rudely break the golden link 
And thus defeat His own design. 

Your path and mine awhile may part, 
Fate wills it so — but, O, my sweet, 

The time will come when, heart to heart, 
We two shall meet — we two shall meet ! 



The Lute of Life 



I feel your presence everywhere, 
Your dark eyes gleam in all I see ; 

Like some bright spirit of the air, 
You come to me — you come to me! 

Do you not feel the destiny 

That brings me, slavelike, to your feet? 
Have you no secret thought for me 

That scarce your own lips dare repeat? 

When I recall each rosy hour 

That burned to ashes at your grate, 

I knozv that some controlling power, 
Dear girl, is fashioning our fate. 

And so I bide the Will Supreme, 
Believing that the time will be 

When all the joys of which I dream 
Will come to me — will come to me. 

It may be long — I question not, 
But rest content from day to day ; 

Tho' dark as death may be my lot. 
One hope alone shall be my stay. 

And now to Him who arched the skies 
I trust my all, assured that He 

Will rightly shape our destinies. 

And bring you — bring you back to me. 



IN A BOOK-STALL 

(a voice from the SHELIf) 

Ah, friend of ours! again to-day 
We hail you as you enter here, 

In our seclusion shut away, 
And quite forgot from year to year ; 

We recognize your voice — your smile — 



The Lute of Life 89 



We know your footfall on the floor, 
And when you loiter down the aisle 
Our old hearts leap to life once more. 

You come alone, like some fond child 

Who, caring naught for sports that be, 
Resigns the romp and riot wild 

To perch upon his grandsire's knee ; 
Your gentle constancy is all 

That cheers us in this gloom confined, 
Yet once we held an age in thrall 

And shaped the counsels of mankind. 

Alas !_ we 're but a motley race, 

Abject, ill-favored, out of date, 
With flimsy garb and frowsy face, 

And shorn of each attractive trait ; 
Yet in our dotage linger still 

Some pregnant mem'ries of our prime, 
When, like a trumpet piping shrill. 

We thrilled the young blood of our time. 

Philosopher and bard and sage 

Have sanctified us with their breath, 
And left their lordly heritage 

With us— and so we scoff at death ; 
What boots it if a brainless age 

Consign us to this narrow scope? 
Enough, if but one tattered page 

Still tingle with the pulse of Pope. 

The petty insults of neglect 

That greet us in this prison gray 
Are trifles, when we recollect 

The glory of a vanished day ; 
If paltry poets pass us by. 

And statesmen scorn to come a-near, 
Enough ! we charmed a Cromwell's eye, 

And Spenser left a book-mark here. * 



90 The Lute of Life 

O friend! so steadfast and so true, 

So patient in your lonely quest, 
We keep no secrets back from you — 

From you, our fond and welcome guest ; 
Go where you will — the doors fling wide — 

Ransack the larder — loose the locks ; 
No wealth of ours shall be denied 

To any love like yours that knocks. 



THE FLOWER-GIRI. 

How comes it, to-night, as all lonely 

I sit where the chandelier gleams, 
That one little form, and one only, 

Comes up through the dusk of my dreams,- 
Trips out through the twilight of fancies. 

And halts at the side of my chair. 
With a handful of lilies and pansies, 

And one snowy rose in her hair? 

O little flower-girl of my wedding! 

I push back the years with a smile. 
As I think of the night you went spreading 

Those flowers up the carpeted aisle. 
To the music of Mendelssohn thrilling 

In ecstasies warm on the air. 
While the fairest of Junes was distilling 

Its rarest perfumes everywhere. 

The bride of that night now reposes 

In dreams so delicious and sweet. 
She heeds not the whispering roses 

That throng at her head and her feet ; 
And the little flower-girl of the wedding 

Has grown into woman's estate; — 
Ah, I wish that the path she is treading 

Would lead to the spot where I wait. 



The Lute of Life 91 



AFTER A LITTLE WHILE 

A little while longer together, my love, 

And the night over one of us twain will fall, — 
And the future that we have been dreaming of 
Will muffle its face in a funeral-pall ; 
It will not be I. — O the sad truth lies 
Like a burning coal on my heart and eyes. 
And parches my soul as the days go by, 

When I feel, when I know, after all — after all — 
It will not be I. 

A few more weeks together, my dear, 

And over the rose of your warm, sweet cheek 
I will press my lips, but you will not hear 

The crash of my hopes nor the words I speak; 
God in His mercy be near me then, 
In the hush of that desolate moment, when 
The house grows silent and friends draw nigh, 
And even the whispers of solace seem bleak 
As the winds that cry. 

A few more days together, my own, 

A few more precious and beautiful days. 
And I shall go out in the world alone. 
To bear my part, and to walk its ways ; 
Over my head will the dark years run, 
But after a time they will all be done. 
And then, reaching out for your hand on high, 
I will climb to your heart — ^to your welcoming 
gaze — 

Love, by and by. 



TWILIGHT IN AUGUST 

Cloud-islands, dimly blue and rimmed with gold. 
Are drifting dreamily along the west, 
The sultry sun an hour since swooned to rest 

Beyond the pathless prairie aureoled ; 



92 The Lute of Life 

No sound is heard saving the manifold 
Small voices of the dusk that manifest 
Their multitudinous delights w^ith zest 

Among the dewy trees and grasses cold. 

The katydids, those prophets of the groves, 
At twilight take their noisy taborets 
And warn us of the near approach of frost ; 
The crickets in the hedges lisp their loves 
In moody diapasons of regrets, 
As if their petty passions had been crossed. 

WITH THE DOCTOR 

"Mother, make room in the bed for me," 

A shivering child in the garret cried, 
As the plague swept up like a crimson sea 

To his face so faded and hollow-eyed. 
Into her lifted and withered arms 

He crept, and there on her wasted breast 
Was cradled away from the world's alarms, 

To the dreamless calm of a perfect rest. 

It mellowed my heart like a shower of prayers, 

When the morning rose with a lurid glare 
On the empty town, and I climbed the stairs 

And gazed on the pale, cold sleepers there. 
As I galloped away with a stifling sigh 

From the pest-house gates, I fashioned this plea, 
With a sad face fixed on the sunless sky, 

"Thus, Father, O Father, make room for me." 



MY FIRST BOOK 

(virXANE;i.LE) 

They sent it through the mail to me — 

A darling duodecimo. 
Full-gilt and bound so daintily. 



The Lute of Life 



93 



Just how my pulses leapt to see 

Its pretty page, you ne'er shall know- 
They sent it through the mail to me. 

Of all the bonnie books that be, 

My book — it made the finest show, 
Full-gilt and bound so daintily. 

I spread it proudly on my knee. 

With trembling hand and cheek aglow- 
(They sent it through the mail to me). 

And all the critics did agree 

The book was choice, and sure to go; 
Full-gilt and bound so daintily. 

Cigars, I think, are best to free 

One of the blues, when sales are slow. 
They sent it through the mail to me. 
Full-gilt and bound so daintily. 



INDIAN SUMMER 

Upon the bleak November hills 
A solitary bluebird trills 
His latest song, — and far along 
The russet upland loudly rings 
The lay the sturdy woodman sings. 

Beyond the pasture's hazel edge, 
From out the hollow's tangled sedge. 
The quail upsprings on whirring wings, 
And down the stubble flutters fast 
Before the hunter's heartless blast. 

From out a moss-grown sugar-trough 
A lonesome rabbit gallops off 
Across the woods and solitudes, 



94 The Lute of Life 

That rustle to the slightest stir 
Of dropping leaf and acorn-burr. 

In lazy aldermanic guise 
The yellow-breasted pawpaw lies 
So snugly hid the leaves amid 
That scarce a schoolboy's eager eye 
Can find it as he saunters by. 

In lines that waver and converge, 

The puzzled wild ducks southward surge 

The livelong day, — while far away 

A circling hawk is seen to swim 

Along the twilight's amber rim. 

The blue-jays on the windy oak 
Hold joyless jabber thro' the smoke 
Of these dim days ; — while faintly strays 
From orchard haunts and leafless groves 
The murmur of the patient doves. 

Beyond the river's fringe of mist 
The wild vines climb and intertwist 
Their amorous shoots, rich-hung with fruits 
That froth with wine so ripe and fair 
The fairies fill their flagons there. 

Within the forest brown and seared. 
To-day no harsher sound is heard 
Than lisps of rills, and timorous trills 
Of birds that seek a shelter from 
The surly winter soon to come. 

It were as if some sudden shock 
Had stopped the wheels of Nature's clock 
An instant, ere the flying year 
Sent forth his trumpeters to blow 
The signals of approaching snow. 



The Lute of Life 95 

O glorious Indian Summer time ! 
Where is the country, where the dime, 
To match with this ? O land of bliss, — 
O land of love and light and flowers! 
God made it last, and made it ours. 



THE OLD MILL 

The morning rose bright on the clover-clad hill, 

And lightly the breezes went by, 
As I took the old path leading down to the mill. 

That stood where the bluffs beetle high ; 
The path leading down by the steep to the strand, 

Where I loitered a lad in my mirth, 
When life was a beautiful rainbow that spanned 

The loveliest valley of earth. 

The bluebird still swung on the sycamore boughs, 

The sandpiper rode on the wave. 
And still to the pebble-paved ford came the cows, 

At noonday, to drink and to lave; 
The dam was nigh down, yet the cataract fell 

O'er the ledge with a plunge and a roar. 
That seemed to my heart, in its tumult, to tell 

Of the halcyon summers of yore. 

The rock was still there where we dived in the tide. 

And the sands where we stretched in the sun. 
But the many gay fellows that played at our side 

Had gone from the valley, each one ; 
The old fishing-log it had floated away. 

And over the crumbling canoe 
The paddles were locked, in a dream of decay, 

Where the mold and the rank mosses grew. 

By the dust-girdled doorway, where gabbled the geese, 

And the pilfering swine used to stray. 
The grass had grown up in an emerald fleece 



96 The Lute of Life 

That lovingly mantled the way ; 
I saw not the brown little barefooted maid 

Trip down the long- path to the spring, 
I heard not the sound of her song in the glade, 

Nor the light-hearted laugh at the swing. 

The mill was as mute as the miller who lies 

In his green-curtained cot on the hill, — 
And I thought, as the tears gathered into my eyes, 

That the dead had come back to the mill ; 
That I saw the old wagons roll up with their grist, 

And again heard the rumble and roar 
Of the wheels, — but, alas ! it was only a mist 

Falling over my senses, — no more! 

Ah, the dust-covered miller ! near twenty long years 

Have flown since he took his last toll ; 
His heart, when he died, was as sound as his burrs, 

And as white as his flour, was his soul ; 
Still the wraith of him stands at the low batten-door, 

And his laughter comes back from the past ; 
Still the sound of his footstep is heard on the floor, 

Tho' the mill 's but a wreck in the blast. 



TO THE MARCH MOON 

O moon of March ! what seest thou 

But dead leaves, still ? No bursting bud 
Breaks into bloom on any bough 

In all the bare, unbreathing wood. 
O sweet March moon ! 
Canst thou not woo the bloomy brood 

To don their kirtles, pink and white, 
And, in the upland solitude, 

Come out to-night — come out to-night? 

O moon of March ! come down, come down,- 
Perchance a new Endymion lies 



The Lute of Life 97 

On yonder hill, by yonder town, 
With peerless lips and perfect eyes. 
O fair March moon ! 

Forsake the dull eternal skies 
For just a hasty swallow-flight, 

In answer to a lover's cries, — 

Come down to-night, come down to-night! 

O moon of March ! O lady-moon, 

High-throned above the wreathing mist! 
Come down in silver-silken shoon, 

Come down with starlight round thy wrist, 
O pale March moon ! 
What tho' no shepherd keep his tryst 

Like that sweet lad on Latmos' height. 
Yet there be "lips that should be kissed," — 

Then come to-night, then come to-night! 

moon of March ! so proud, so cold. 
If thus thou heedest not my prayer, 

1 dare to brand thee as a bold, 
Night-walking wanton of the air; — 

O vain March moon ! 
Henceforth I hate thy frozen glare. 

Thy loveless and illusive light. 
And so I plead in my despair. 

Come not to-night — come not to-night! 



KIDNAPED 

And in the dreadful dream I had, 
Methought my little lisping lad 
By rude and ruffian hands was torn 
From me, and I was left forlorn. 
The morning broke — the sunlight crept 
Upon his white face as he slept 
In marble silence undefiled, — 
Some angel had kidnaped my child. 



98 The Lute of Life 



A NIGHT IN JUNE 

Upon the cooling summer grass the dark 

Falls lightly, and the panting violet 

Uplifts its purple lip and lash of jet 
To sip the slow-descending dews. The lark 
Is softly sleeping, pillowed in an ark 

Of sighing grasses, like some old regret 

Couched in the bosom of an anchoret, 
Amid dead loves that rattle stiff and stark. 

The crooked moon is peering thro' the pines, 
And checkering the lawn with leaves of light, 

And belting all the dim fields with broad lines 

That stretch like silver ribbons through the night ; 

Stars on the grass, and fire-flies on the vines, 
And sorrow in the breast of every wight. 



WHEN WE THREE MEET 

(R., c, M.) 

When we three meet, as meet we may, 
And meet we must, some after-day, 
What keener sense of joy can be 
Accorded unto men than we 
Shall feel along our pulses play ? 

If time hath turned our temples gray, 
What then, shall we not still be gay, 
Be still as fresh and flush and free, 
When we three meet ? 

We bear apart — drift wide astray, 
Each in his own appointed way, 
Like ships that sever out at sea, — 
We bear apart, but all agree 
That care shall have a holiday 
When we three meet. 



The Lute of Life 



99 



RII^EY'S RESPONSE 

(M., C, R.) 

When we three meet? Ah ! friend of mine 
Whose verses well and flow as wine, — 
My thirsting fancy thou dost fill 
With draughts delicious, sweeter still 
Since tasted by those lips of thine. 

I pledge thee, through the chill sunshine 
Of autumn, with a warmth divine, 
Thrilled through as only I shall thrill 
When we three meet. 

I pledge thee, if we fast or dine, 
We yet shall loosen, line by line. 
Old ballads, and the blither tril'l 
Of our-time singers — for there will 
Be with us all the Muses nine 
When we three meet. 

— ^James Whitcomb R11.EY. 



A RED ANARCHIST 

(after anacreon) 

"Give me more love or more disdain,"- 
So ran an early bard's refrain; 

And he was wise. For Love, I wist, 

Is always a red anarchist. 
Who brooks not any galling law 
That moody moralists can draw. 

Love begs no pardon — craves no grace 
Of court or clan— but, face to face. 
He fronts his foe with proud disdain, 
And, laughing, lights his torch again. 
As one who moves unterrified. 
Because he feels God at his side. 



loo The Lute of Life 



Love's eyes are keen, and quick to see 

And claim his own, where'er it be, 
In spite of social masks, — in spite 
Of petty codes that cramp and blight,- 

In spite of every bar or ban 

That chills the warm heart of the man. 

Love stores his fatal dynamite 

In eyes made beautiful and bright 
With that reciprocal desire 
That gloweth like a steady fire; — 

And so it is, I still insist, 

That Love is a red anarchist. 



A RHYME OF BROWN OCTOBER 

Brown is the leaf on the black-oak tree, 

And over the fields beyond the town, 
As far to the north as the eye can see. 

The world is turning from green to brown ; 
Brown is the East, brown is the West, 

Brown is the South where the pigeons fly, 
Brown is the down on Bob White's breast, 

But browner than all is my sweetheart's eye. 

Brown is the back of the burdened bee, 

In the twilight time of the changing year; 
Brown is the cider that trickles free. 

And brown is the gourd that is lying near ; 
Brown is the nut in the hazel shell, 

Swinging low in the sunburnt air ; 
Brown is the acorn's empty bell, 

But browner than all is my sweetheart's hair. 

Brown is the pawpaw flecked with frost. 
Brown is the fur on the prowling fox, 

Brown is the floss that is frayed and lost 
When the corn is husked from the shining shocks ; 



The Lute of Life loi 



Brown is the face of the farmer boy, 

Who follows the furrows far from town; 

Brown is my heart with the heat of joy, 
For the name of the lass I love is — Brown! 



AI.ONE AT THE FARM 
(raster) 

As I sit alone in the twilight gray, 

Under the sound of the April rain, 
My thoughts go back to an Easter Day 

Of the long-ago, and I listen again 
(But listen in vain!) 
For the shouts of the boys who used to swarm 

Out of the neighboring town, like plagues, 
To spend a glorious day at the farm. 

With the boys of the country, coloring eggs. 

And I, poor fool! was as gruff as a bear, 

For I never could stand their noise — but Jane, 
Sweet soul ! she always welcomed them there. 

With a love that her dear heart could not feign- 
(And the boys loved Jane!) 
And many a time I heard her say 

(In the after-years ere she paled and died) 
That, God permitting, on Easter Day 

She would clasp their hands on the other side. 

So the years went by, and the boys were grown. 

And the grass waved high in the orchard lane,- 
And down where the sounds of war were blown 

The lads of the Easter-time lay slain; 
And oh, the pain ! 
And oh, the sobbing — the ceaseless moan — 

The long sad nights, and the vigils vain 
Of an old man drooping and dreaming alone 

Of days that never come back again! 



I02 The Lute of Life 



THE ISLAND OF REIL 

Read before the Alumni Association of the University 
of Illinois, June 4, 18/8. 

[It is a fact now well-established by pathological investigation 
that the faculty or power of speech is located in a certain 
part of the brain, designated by anatomists as the Island 
of Reil. A disease of the brain situated in this particular 
spot is known to interfere with and even destroy the power 
of remembering and articulating words. I have chosen my 
subject at the suggestion of a friend.] 

Have ye heard of the wonderful Island of Reil, 

That budless, birdless, blossomless clime, 

Where purple streams run — where no stars, no sun, 

Have flashed on its face since the dawning of time? 

Have ye read of that cityless, cloudless land, 

That loveless, lustreless land that lies 

Unkiss'd by the amorous breath of the skies. 

That land that is grand as an Eden is grand? 

Ye answer me nay, — ^then list to my lay, 

While the mists that envelop it vanish away. 

While I, in my revel of rhyme, will reveal 

The tales that are told of the Island of Reil. 

No footsteps e'er fall on that fabulous shore, 

The darkness of death and dead silence are there ; 

But the crimson-lipped tides, sweeping out evermore. 

Are freighted with vessels strong, stately, and fair; 

Strong vessels that ply without rudder or oar. 

Tall ships that are sailless, black boats that come down 

In silence by never a thorp or a town — 

In silence, where beautiful fields never gleam — 

In silence, where forests their leaves never shed — 

In silence as dead as the ghost of a dream. 

Or dead as a lofty white hope that is dead. 

No banners flow out over turreted walls. 

By river or lakelet ; no low water-falls, 

No laughter, no murmur, no shrines for the gods, 

No music is there, and no roseate air. 

No clouds sun-kiss'd, no cofifin-prest clods, 



The Lute of Life 103 



No priest at his chancel, with psean or prayer ; 

No summer smiles out from its garb of sweet green. 

No winter in that mystic island is seen ; 

But a rapture unchanging each mortal must feel 

Who has heard of the marvelous Island of Reil. 

'T is a place — 't is a realm — out of reach, out of sight, 

And the snowy-white palace that stretches its spire 

All sunward above and around it, is one 

Of the stateliest temples seen under the sun — 

Of the lordliest temples that men may admire ; 

'T is a place, 't is a realm, where each man has a right — 

A limitless license of love or desire; 

'T is a land that is fruitful of words and no more. 

Words leap like rich lilies to life on its shore — 

Words white as the wraith of a love that is lost. 

Words dark as the brow of a soul tempest-tost. 

Words soft as a feather of frost in the sun. 

Words cruel as steel in the throat of a gun, 

Words cold as the ice on the temple of Dian, 

Words warm as the melodies hymned upon Zion, 

Words sad as the grief o'er a sepulchred hope. 

Words dear as the name of sweet Christ to the Pope ; 

Ay, words, and words only, spring up into flower, 

Spring up into fruit, on this nebulous isle ; 

As I sit all alone, I marvel, I smile. 

At this wonderful freak of Omnipotent Power, — 

I laugh in my lightness, laugh loud in my zeal. 

In my dreamy, dim song of the Island of Reil. 

Far back in the white early spring of delight, 
When the pale Galilean press'd foot to the sod ; 
When men apostolic strode forth with their God ; 
When the halt was made whole and the blind received 

sight ; 
When the desolate dead, by a single word said. 
Rose up from bleak tombs that were burst by a word — 
From the fetters of death, that were snapp'd like a 

thread 



I04 The Lute of Life 

By a syllabled sound from the lips of the Lord ! — 
Now silver-browed Science, re-sainted since then, 
His rimy, rough lips to the quick ear of men, 
One fact has revealed, in a whisper so clear 
That the turbulent, populous Earth must hear, — 
And the secret is this, that no word ever came 
From the mouth of a being, in woe or in weal. 
In the triumph of joy or the torment of flame, 
That sprang not to life in the Island of Reil. 

When the Swan of sweet Avon touched hand to the 

lyre — 
Touched hand till its stormy strings melted with fire, 
Touched hand till the dizzy earth reeled with delight, — 
Sang songs that were fed with the wine of desire, 
Songs steeped in the streams of his infinite might ; 
When his children of fancy — oh, marvelous throng! — 
He embalmed in the lustre of drama and song ; 
When the doves of his genius flew higher and higher ; 
When he took his great heart to Anne Hathaway's 

door. 
The grace of her innocent love to implore, 
He went like a man, and he wooed like a knight. 
Like a conqueror won, in his honor bedight ; — 
He won her, but how ? Why, the words that he spoke 
In the wealth of his love, were as strong as the oak ; 
Anne Hathaway listened — what maid had done less ? — 
She looked at great Shakespeare and answered him 

"Yes !" 
She answered him "Yes," come woe or come weal, 
And the precious word came from the Island of Reil. 

Somewhere in the West, in the times that are fled, 

A woodsman was born, with a crown on his head, — 

A crown not of jewels or gold, but a crown 

Where the shield of true worth was the seal of renown ; 

No blood of great kings in his arteries run. 

His father was humble, his mother she spun — 

She spun, little dreaming, perchance, that her son, 



The Lute of Life 105 

In the strength of his years, would arise like a star, 
Which the wondering- nations would hail from afar — 
She spun, little dreaming, perchance, that the name 
Of her boy would be thundered in trumpets of fame, 
From the North to the South, from the East to the 

West, 
That the name of her child would forever be blest. 
Long, long are the years he has lain in the grave, 
The foe of oppression, the friend of the slave, — 
Great Lincoln, so stately, so stainless, so brave ! 
He spoke, and the words that went forth from his lips 
Were precious as balm-freighted Orient ships, — 
He spoke, and the fetters on spirit and heel 
Fell loose at a word from the Island of Reil. 

Now comrades, old-timers, go back thro' the years. 
Tear off the cold shroud from the pearly white ten, 
Bedew the pale dead with the glory of tears — 
Who knows but the ghosts of those years will come 

back, 
Dim angels of love, o'er the desolate track. 
And revisit the lives of their children again? 
In the beauty and dawn of the decade that 's gone, 
In the glow of my fancy, I greet you once more, 

comrades, I see you in stairway and door, 
In the dews of the spring, in the dusk of the fall, 

1 hail ye, my comrades, in campus and hall ; 
I see the old faces, I hear the old songs. 
And those old agitations of fanciful wrongs. 
Our riots, our revels, our murmurs, and mirth. 
Come back like the sweetest old satires of earth. 
O speak to me, spirit of years that have been ! 
Where now are the boys — I beg pardon, the men — 
That never come back to their Alma again? 

On the breast of great lakes they are striking the oars, 

Some climbing tall billows on perilous seas, 

Some lost in dim cities on far-away shores. 

Some blown about earth like a wandering breeze ; 

Some wearing out honor and truth from their breast. 



io6 The Lute of Life 



In the struggle for life, in the wilds of the West ; 
In the isles of the sun — in the kingdoms of snow — 
We hail our old comrades wherever we go ; 
In the gleam of grey marbles some dear ones we greet, 
Borne down in the flight of the turbulent years, 
Swept down thro' the doorway of death, ere the heat 
And the storm of the struggle with life had begun — 
Dead comrades, we turn to you, turn to each one, 
In the holy white silence of desolate tears. 
And one we remember — O Time, in thy flight, 
One spirit recall from the regions of light 
To smile on us, bless us, be with us this night, — 
Great Baker, strong-souled as the streams of the sea, 
Tall-minded and pure, so knightly, so grand, 
We rise to you, reach to you, stretch you a hand, 
So dear to each heart as a father could be ! 



My light song is ended — why linger and wait? — 
Bend low. Alma Mater, press lip to our own. 
Give us back to the world, to the work to be done 
Down the path of the years, in the highway of fate — 
Why loiter, like Adam and Eve, at the gate? 
Our joys are behind us, our griefs are before. 
But part we with laughter, brave hearts, as of yore, — 
God bless you — Good-by ! — O comrades, I feel 
That 's the bitterest word in the Island of Reil ! 



EUGENE FIELD 

As the song of a mother long dead 

Floats up thro' the mists of the years 
From the side of the low trundle-bed. 

Where mingled our laughter and tears — 
So we listen to-night, not in vain. 

And over the years that are flown 
We catch every lingering strain 

Of one whom we loved as our own. 



The Lute of Life 107 



As the notes of the skylark are heard 

Dripping out of the rose-tinted skies, 
Long after the vanishing bird 

Has passed from the reach of our eyes — 
So the voice of the singer we love, 

The song so enchantingly rare. 
Comes echoing back from above. 

From the heavens that welcomed it there. 

As a shell that is torn from the sea 

Forever and ever sings on 
Of the waters, wherever they be, 

Tho' multiplied ages be gone — 
So, deep in our spirits abide 

The sound of each cherished refrain ; 
The minstrel may pass from our side. 

But the song that he sang will remain. 

The temples upbuilded by hands 

Will crumble at last and decay, 
For the best are but based upon sands 

As frail and unstable as they; 
But the germ of a fancy or thought 

In the soil of the soul that is sown, 
With life-everlasting is fraught, 

And its beauty is never outgrown. 

One single sweet song given birth 

In the soul of a poet, contains 
Greater wealth than the Klondikes of earth 

Ever veiled in their obdurate veins; 
Less noble a prince with his plume 

In the pomp of some lordly emprise, 
Than a father who sings in the gloom 

By the crib where his curly-head lies. 

And so to the gentle 'Gene Field 
Our tenderest homage we pay; 
In him was the spirit revealed 



io8 The Lute of Life 

That was dear unto Christ, in His day; 
His heart was the home of the child, 

And childhood the soul of his art — 
Where little ones prattled and smiled, 

He lingered and listened apart. 

The joys of the children were his, 

The needs of their natures he knew. 
And they leaned at his knees for a kiss 

As lilies athirst for the dew; 
His lullabies sealed up their eyes 

As he peopled their fancies with dreams 
Of the winds and the stars and the skies, 

And the fairies that haunt the moonbeams. 

But gone is the light of his face. 

And hushed are his music and mirth; 
A shadow now sits in the place 

That anchored his heart to the earth; 
Tho' broken his harp, let us pray 

That high in the palace of God 
The master is crooning to-day 

To "Wynken and Blynken and Nod." 

WAKING AND SIvEEPING 

The open eye 
May scan the sky, 
And stray the blue 

From star to star; 
But eyes that close 
In soft repose, 
Can traverse realms 

Remoter far. 

The eye unhid 
By lash or lid, 
Can gird the ocean 
With a glance ; 



The Lute of Life 109 

But eyes locked tight 
In sleep, take flight 
Beyond the waking 
World's expanse. 

The eye, by day, 

Can soar away 

And grasp the green earth 

In its span ; 
But folded eyes 
Can pierce the skies 
And their diviner 

Secrets scan. 



TO JOHN URI LLOYD 
(author op "stidorhpa") 

O friend of mine, your genius throws 

A search-light over truths so vast, 
We waken from our long repose 

Amidst the rubbish of the past, 
To view the shining altitudes 

Of human thought, as you unscroll 
The tracings of those lofty moods 

That hold possession of your soul. 

Till now we have been satisfied 

To take things wholly as they seem; 
But you have drawn the veil aside. 

And torn the drapery from the dream ; 
With one swift stroke you break the shell 

Of ancient fallacies, and show 
The subtle potencies that dwell 

Still dormant in the embryo. 

Whence comes the light we question not, 

But bow our heads in reverence 
To that High Source which doth allot 



no The Lute of Life 



To you the gracious eminence 
Of pouring into blinded eyes 

The visions, meted unto you, 
Of those mysterious destinies 

Which we are madly rushing to. 

The messages that you have brought 

To waiting Age and warring Youth, 
If sad or glad, it matters naught, 

We court no quarrel with the truth ; 
If at the core of life there lies 

Only the frozen sea of Force, 
Be brave, O Soul ! some sweet surprise 

May still be hidden at the source. 



DUSK 

Night pours the cooling ashes of the Day 
Into her vast and shadow-wreathen urn, — 

And then the mourning Moon comes forth to pray, 
Leading her orphan stars, who kneel in turn. 



ONE GOLDEN HAIR 

(found in an oix> voi^ume: of burns) 

A woman's hair ! a single strand ! 
And yet a most fantastic thought 
Flashed o'er me, as my fingers caught 

And drew it forth across my hand. 

Like to some living thing that turns, 
Instinctive, from the spoiler's touch, 
The hair curled upward from my clutch, 
And sought again the page of Burns, — 
A page whereon the bard had told 
A woman's charms, in verse divine : — 
"Her hair was like the links o' gold, 
Her cheeks like lilies dipped in wine." 



The Lute of Life iti 



A woman's hair ! a single shred ! 

A golden fibre gently torn 

From some proud beauty to adorn 
The book of love wherein she read, — 
Wherein she caught the flash and fire 

Of purest passion ever given 
To sanctify a poet's lyre 

And lure a panting heart to heaven. 

A golden hair! a slender thing! 

A soft and silken coil ! And yet, 

In death, it still would pay a debt 
Of love unto the poet-king. 
This single hair — this twining hair — 

A sweeter, nobler tribute pays 
To him who sang beside the Ayr, 

Than any human lip can phrase. 



THE WRITER 

Of all the arts in which the wise excel, 
Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well. 

— Buckingham. 

That man is master of the noblest art 

Who, with a sorcery of speech, has power 
To draw from out the dormant soul its flower 

Of warm and perfect passion, or to start 

With floods of song the cascades of the heart 
To plunging cataracts, amidst whose shower 
Of spattering spray a thousand rainbows bower 

And beautify our lives in every part. 

He stands aloft, a lighthouse on the heights 
Of human history. The boiling seas 

Blacken beneath him, but, serene, he pours 
A steady splendor down the roaring nights. 
And, through the straits of two eternities, 
Lightens our sea-path unto stormless shores. 



112 The Lute of Life 

OCTOBER 

Upon the dreamy upland aureoled, 

I saw the sombre artist, Autumn, stand, 
Ghostlike, against the dim and shadowy land, 

Limning the hills with purple and with gold ; 

And while I gazed a mighty mist uprolled. 
As at the touch of some enchanter's wand, — 
And all the woods by sudden winds were fanned, 

And darkness fell upon the amber wold. 

Out of the frosty north, like Indian arrows. 
In never-falt'ring flight, the wild ducks flew ; 

And from the windy fields the summer sparrows 
Reluctantly their feathery tribes withdrew, — 

As from the heart the hopes of manhood fly 

When the sad winter of old age draws nigh. 



A HASTY BURIAL 

Love is dead, dear, and hereafter 
We are twain, who once were one ; 

No more song and no more laughter — 
Dreams are over — doubts are done. 

Let us then go forth together. 

Where the long, cool grasses wave 

Through the golden summer weather. 
And together make Love's grave. 

He was fair, but he was fickle, 
And he madly ran his race; 

(Gracious! how the rains will trickle 
Through his hair and on his face!) 

Ah, you need not take the trouble 
- So to mellow down the clods ; 

Toss him in ! for life 's a bubble 
At the best, and what 's the odds ! 



The Lute of Life 113 

Nay ! we 'II hardly scatter roses, 

If you please, upon the spot ; 
Let him lie there where he dozes 

In the solitude, forgot. 

Tears? Ah, how can you respect him? 

Sighs? or weep for him, my pet? 
Sorry ? then we '11 resurrect him — 

Easy, dear ! he 's breathing yet. 



THE VOICES 

When far stars sift their powdered silver through 
The wavering limes along the avenue, — 

When Summer stands in roses to her knees, 
And sips the gracious incense of her trees, — 
When cooling shadows muffle dim retreats. 
There comes a voice — a voice that whispers 

Keats. 

When green fields turn to gray, and to the wood 

The lone quail leads the remnant of her brood, — 
When southward swings the sad, uncertain sun. 
And streams forget to riot as they run, — 

When rains descend and winds become defiant. 

Before our vision floats the wraith of 

Bryant. 

When driving from the North the snows begin 

To build their walls, and close their captives in, — 
When gables grumble at the rising blast, 
And Winter locks his icy shackles fast, — 

When birds seek shelter in the bending fir. 

And nights grow long, we dream of 

Whittier. 

When farm-boys shout behind their shining plows, 
And sudden blackbirds bluster on the boughs, — 



114 The Lute of Life 



When blossoms star the sward, and down the glen 
The wanton redbud shakes her plumes again, — 
When Nature's laughter, long withheld, returns 
To warm the waking world, we think of 

Burns. 



A DREAM OF BEAUTY 

I muse on her dark eyes, and see the gloss 
Of dewy grapes that purple in the gloom 

Of amorous gardens, where the faint winds toss 
O'er violet reaches, panting with perfume ; 

A dream of fawns ! peering with passionate glance 
Between the lindens at midsummer dawn. 
When love awakens, and desire is on. 

And piping robins hold the world in trance. 

I dream of her dark hair, and feel the dusk 
Of cooling myrtles in the twilight vales 

Of Tempe, when no mellowing moonbeams husk 
The shadows from the shifting nightingales ; 

A vision of swift ravens heading south 

Between pomegranate boughs amidst the hills 
Of Arcady, what time the summer spills 

Its kindling kisses on the lily's mouth. 

I sing of her white hands — two dimpled sprites 
More tremulous and stainless and more soft 

Than rose-leaves opening in midsummer nights. 
By moon-dawns, in the deepest woodland croft ; 

A vision of vain hopes ! a shimmering mist 
Of swan-down, cincturing each lovely limb 
Of Mab's hand-maidens, when the warm stars trim 

Their dewy tresses with pale amethyst. 

Then, fancying her love, I hear the coo 

Of doves far-hidden in the citron-groves 
Of Hellas, where the high gods came to woo, 



The Lute of Life 115 

And change for mortal, their immortal loves ; 

A vision of the ripening South — a dream 
Of loveliness and passion, song and wine, 
And Greek girls lolling where the Bacchanal vine 

Tipples and sips the summer's amber beam. 



HER KNITTING NEEDLES 

In the bureau's bottom drawer, as I rummaged there 
to-day, 
With the memory of other times aglow, 
I found the knitting needles that my mother tucked 
away, 
In the twilight of a winter long ago ; 
They were tangled in the fingers of a wee unfinished 
glove, 
And when I stooped and touched them it did seem 
I could see the vanished features of the one I used to 
love, 
In the cheery chimney-corner of my dream. 

O the little shining lances ! how they glittered in the 
light 
Of the cabin where my mother used to sit 
In her cozy, cushioned rocker till the middle of the 
night, 
A-crooning tender ditties as she knit ; 
And I feel my feet grow warmer, as I plod across the 
past. 
In the stockings that her white and holy hands 
In their feebleness had fashioned ere she fell asleep at 
last 
And was borne into the summer-litten lands. 

No trophies ever dangled in a mediaeval hall 
More sacred for the memories they hold, 

Than these, the lowly relics of the saint that I recall 
Thro' the twilight of the tender days of old : 



ii6 The Lute of Life 



Each needle is a talisman, a token, a delight, 
A wand that lures my fancy unaware 

From the prison of the present, and its shadow infinite, 
To my cabin home, and mother knitting there. 



THE CRY OF MARGUERITE 

Ah, lady of the lily-hand and of the rosy cheek. 

Ah, lady of the haughty brow, too proud, too vain to 
speak. 

What though your face be like a saint's, your sym- 
metry divine, 

God sees the scarlet on your soul as plain as that on 
mine. 

Ah, lady of the latticed house, between my sin and 

yours 
Are but a curtained casement and a suite of folding 

doors ; 
Your feet are on the fender, mine on the flags, you see, 
But our guilty souls are sisters, and they 're keeping 

company. 

Ah, lady of the childless house, so wise and so discreet, 
Look from your lofty lattice at yon picture in the 

street, — 
That curled and perfumed debauchee is paramour of 

thine, 
And the little barefoot boy you see, who blacks his 

boots, is mine. 

Yet we were girls together, lady, once upon a time. 
And all the world was sweet and pure as silver bells 

that chime ; 
Our life was but a pulse of love — a lute-note and a 

rhyme — 
Before the crimson of our lips had kissed the cups of 

crime. 



The Lute of Life 117 



Your hair was dark and bountiful — your eyes were 

streams of light, 
That leaped and laughed and quivered, as a mountain 

torrent's might; — 
My tresses were a mist of gold— my eyes were deepest 

blue, 
That trembled in their beauty like the starlight on the 

dew. 

But the tempter came and blinded us, and made us both 

his prey; 
And you had wealth, and I had not, and I was cast 

away, — 
Was cast away to hide my shame among the brutal 

mass 
That shift along the road to death, like shadows over 

glass. 

'T was then you spurned me from your side, as some- 
thing vile, accurst. 

You— you— the sister-sharer of my folly from the first; 

But I loved you still, and pitied you, and so I held my 
tongue. 

And kept concealed the fatal fleck that on your beauty 
clung. 

But when to-day I begged you for a pittance for my 

child, 
While my mother-heart was breaking, and my brain 

was running wild. 
When you cut me with your cold disdain, and turned 

me from your door, 
God help my woman's weakness! I could keep the 

truth no more. 

And now you see me as I am, a fragment at your feet, 
Love's cripple on a broken crutch, who once was Mar- 
guerite. 
Yet nightly on my knees I sink, in agony unseen. 



ii8 The Lute of Life 



And pray that He will pardon me, who pardoned Mag- 
dalene. 

But hasten down, my lady, there 's a carriage at your 

gate ; 
Your husband will be home at ten, your lover can not 

wait; 
Sure he '11 not mind one curl misplaced — one ribbon, 

here or there : 
His steeds are pawing at the curb — O hasten down the 

stair ! 

But pray indulge a sister's glance, the while you flutter 

down 
Your terrace-steps, and reach to him the fairest hand 

in town ; 
The game you play is perilous — let no mistake be made : 
The penalty of sin like yours is sometimes dearly paid. 

Ah, Lady Lofty, from the mire of shame wherein I 

stray, 
I 'd not exchange my guilt for yours for all your gold 

to-day. 
Not all the silks of Samarcand can hide the crimson 

stain 
That, some day, like a flame will mount, and burn into 

your brain. 



A CONSOLATION 

What would befall us. Love, if Death were dead, — 
If dear old Death, with his benignant face. 
Were banished from the world, and in his place 

Stood endless Life upon the earth instead? 

What word of comforting could then be said 

To those who languish, or what tongue could trace 
The deep'ning horrors of the deathless race 

Thro' hopeless ages darkening overhead ? 



The Lute of Life 1 1 9 



The rising dawns would lose their lustre, dear, 
The soothing shades of evening cease to charm, 
And even beauty would no longer lure ; 
The fervor of our love from year to year 
Would fail us, and its fires refuse to warm, 
Were Death not here to bid us still endure. 



A DREAM IN MARBLE 

Superb and snow-white in the splendor 

Of shimmering marble she stood, 
Where a tremulous twilight made tender 

Her charms so enchantingly nude ; 
Tho' blushless and bloodless and breathless, 

Tho' chaste as a star and as chill. 
She stood there despairingly deathless, 

Tormentingly speechless and still. 

Men knew by the light that fell round her, 

By the poise of her head and her hands. 
That he who had sought her had found her. 

And prisoned her there where she stands ; — 
Had frozen the life from her lashes, 

Had chilled her warm cheek into stone, 
Had banked her first passion with ashes. 

And made her cold beauty his own. 

Like a marvelous melody ended, 

A delectable dream that is done. 
She lingered, serenely and splendid,. 

Immortal in marble, and lone ; 
The midnight was stripped from her tresses. 

The starlight was kissed from her eyes, 
And she knew not the sculptor's caresses, 

Nor heeded his smiles or his sighs. 

But when on the snows of her shoulder 
Love laid the warm pulse of his palm, 



I20 The Lute of Life 



A flame as of life seemed to fold her, 
And startle her soul from its calm ; 

And over her body a tinting 
Of roses ran forth like the glow 

Of spring, when the sunbeams are printing 
Their lyrics of love on the snow. 

Her lids, how they lifted and quivered ; 

Her lips, how they crimsoned beneath 
The quickening kiss that delivered 

Her forth from the limbus of death; 
Her limbs into melodies frozen. 

Were loosed from their strenuous thrall, 
As lilies relax that repose in 

The warmth of full bosoms, withal. 

^ 5j< iJC '?* ^ *1* 

The spell of the marble is broken. 

Art's triumph is only a dream. 
And love, whether silent or spoken. 

Is victor at last and supreme; 
It shatters the shell that encloses 

The germs that aspire and ascend, 
And life that no longer reposes. 

Moves on unrestrained to the end. 



ALONG THE WABASH 

The redbud on the Wabash banks 
Now lights the torches of the spring, 

And, here and there, in scattered ranks, 
A few brave flowers are marshaling — 

While overhead the boughs are stirred 

By wild notes of a bugler-bird. 

An angler by the Wabash banks 
With rod and creel is seen to roam, 

His dinner dangling at his flanks, 
A half a dozen miles from home ; 



The Lute of Life 121 



His hig-hest hope and zeal, alas ! 
To catch a basketful of bass. 

A hunter by the Wabash banks 
Steals noiselessly along the wood, 

Besprent with mud from shirt to shanks, 
And thirsting for the squirrel's blood ; 

The heartless wretch ! I almost wish 

No luck may load his breakfast dish. 

A lover by the Wabash banks 

In moody melancholy sits, 
A victim of the elfish pranks 

Of Cupid, and his idle wits — 
Tut! tut! how long it takes to find 
That love is not forever kind! 

A poet by the Wabash banks 
Sits piping on a reed like Pan 

A-tipsy, trilling out his thanks 
Right merrily to God and man ; — 

And so I feel constrained to say, 

"The spring is coming up this way." 



WHY NOT? 

I take no thought of my enemy — 
I leave him alone, I pass him by, 
And whistle along with averted eye. 

And let God handle his case for me ; 

I never have done him a conscious wrong, 

Yet hard words rankle upon his tongue 
At the sight of me, and I know not why. 

A little unpleasant ? Aye, that is true, 
To feel forever a man's disdain ; 
But the sun will rise and set again, 

And the lark will sing and the skies be blue, 



122 The Lute of Life 



And the river will not forget to flow 
Because of the hate in the heart of my foe, 
Nor the rain refuse to rain. 



AT THANKSGIVING 

A holy man at the altar stood 
Thanking his Maker for all things good, — 
For peace and plenty, and health and ease, 
And grace more precious than all of these. 

The Master listened, but over His cheek 
A shadow crept, and He did not speak. 

Cold and haggard, and scant of bread, 
A father knelt by his sick child's bed. 
And faltered his brave heart's thankfulness. 
Alone, in the midst of his soul's distress. 

The Master listened, and over His face 
A glad light swept, and He wept a space. 



NUTTING DOWN THE WABASH 

Here we ramble to and fro. 
Careless as the winds that blow. 
Singing, laughing, shouting still, 
Down the hollow — up the hill : 
Everywhere the pawpaws grow, 
Everywhere the red haws glow — 
Everywhere the wild grapes shine, 
Full to bursting, on the vine — 
Everywhere the walnut shakes 
Its bold emeralds in the brakes — 
Everywhere the hazel-bush 
Swings its open purse of plush — 
Everywhere the hick'ry tree 
Heaps its gems unsparingly — 



The Lute of Life 123 



Everywhere the acorn brown 
Flings its humbler jewels down ; — 
Swart October! Kingliest 
Month of all the year, and best ! 
Thus we greet you, as we go, 
Joyous as the winds that blow, 
Gathering nuts. 

Miles from home, — but what of that? 
Here we rest, and here we chat, 
Locked away from care, and shut 
Fast as kernels in a nut, — 
Tilted on a toppled tree, 
Tired of foot, but fancy-free! 
There a squirrel runs at will 
Up an .oak, and takes his fill — 
Here a woodchuck, shy and sly, 
Winks at us and gallops by, — 
Who could lift a hand to slay 
Such as these, on such a day? 
Lend me but an hour like this 
Once a year, and all the bliss 
Of the rest you 're welcome to ; — 
Never painter ever drew 
From the gallery of his mind 
Pictures fair as those we find 
As we ramble to and fro. 
Careless as the winds that blow, 
Gathering nuts. 



AT DUSK 

Between the sunset and the dew. 
When doves along the twilight coo, 
There comes across this heart of mine 
A sense of sadness, half-divine, — 
An ill-defined despair that lends 
A sweetness as the night descends. 



124 The Lute of Life 



The very atmosphere it seems 
Is quivering with wings and dreams, 
With memories and hopes and fears. 
Too sad for smiles, too glad for tears, — 
Strange hints o'er drowsy meadows blown 
From Edens that I once have known. 

To-night my soul's long solitude 

Is broken by a brotherhood 

Of wooing voices, thronging through 

The cool arcades of dusk and dew, 

With whisperings so strangely sweet 

My listening heart can scarcely beat. 

And forms elusive as the light 
Are eddying before my sight, 
While eyes familiar to my gaze 
Dawn on me from dead yesterdays, 
With piteous appeal, as though 
They love me and are loath to go. 

Upsprings the moon, and overhead 
The early stars hang ripe and red ; 
The summer twilight swoons to rest, 
The doves are dumb beside their nest. 
And sleep that knows no care, steals on 
And I retire — my guests are gone. 



A MARKING IN LONGFELLOW 

Twelve months ago to-night her wasted hand, 
Made steady by the impulse of her spirit. 
Marked this sweet song that I might understand, 
In after years, as fancy led me near it : 
"There is no flock, however watched and tended, 

But one dead lamb is there ! 
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended^ 
But has one vacant chair !" 



The Lute of Life 125 

I rest the book against my brimming eyes, 
While Memory with eagerest persistence 
Draws back the starry curtain of the skies 
And leads an angel to me down the distance. 
"Let us be patient ! these severe afflictions 

Not from the ground arise, 
But oftentimes celestial benedictions 
Assume this dark disguise." 

They told me she was dead. They did not know — 

For, every evening as the twilight closes, 
I hear her voice and see her bending low 
Beside the window, where I keep her roses. 

"There is no death ! what seems so is transition ; 

This life of mortal breath 
Is but a suburb of the life elysian, 
Whose portal we call death." 



THE FETTERS OF FLESH 

Could we only be known as we are, — 
Known just as we are, to each one, — 

The world would be fairer by far. 

And the doubts that disturb us be done; 

Could the flesh that enfolds us unroll, 

And soul be disclosed unto soul, 

As the Dawn is disrobed to the Sun — 

How pure would our lives be, and whole! 

Could we only be known as we are, 
Be known as the sea to the sky — 

Be known as the night to the star. 
Or the splendor of space to the eye — 

But Nature, with menacing mien, 

Like the shadow of sin, stands between — 
And we swoon in her sight, as we sigh 

For the self that can never be seen. 



126 The Lute of Life 



We can never be known as we are ! 

Words fail — and our senses refuse 
To make plain what our mouths only mar 

In their mumbling of language abstruse; 
No matter how bad nor how good, 
We can never be all understood — 

We do not the things that we choose, 
And we choose not the things that we should. 

We can never be known as we are, 
Not even be known to our friend ; 

There are discords forever that jar 

The notes of the harps that should blend ; 

Could the one we offended but feel 

The truths that we ne'er can reveal, 
In place of his scorn he would lend 

His pity to help and to heal. 

We can never be known as we are! 

'T is the fiat of fate that we bide 
In dungeons no hand can unbar, 

In glooms only God can divide; 
'T is the penance we pay, reckoned straight, 
For the sins of some higher estate — 

'T is the kindly-made hell where we hide, 
In the fetters of flesh, as we wait. 



LOVE'S APOLOGY 

Though beautiful she may not be, 
Yet is she beautiful to me. 

No other in her face may find 
The witchery that wins my mind. 

Her eyes that do my soul devour, 
Mayhap on others have no power. 



The Lute of Life 127 

The roses on her cheeks that shine, 
May lure not any lips but mine. 

The tender beauty of her tone 
May thrill no spirit save my own. 

My heart alone may understand 
The silken touches of her hand. 

The glory of her falling tress 
May tempt no other palm's caress. 

The world may never note at all 
The graces that my soul enthrall. 

Though beautiful she may not be, 
Perfection's self she is to me. 



THERE IS NO LUCK ABOUT THE HOUSE 

No more the swallows dart and dip 

About my cottage-eaves ; no more 
The tops of my catalpas drip 

With bird-songs, as in days of yore ; 
My grapes are mildewed on the vine, 

My apples blighted on the boughs, 
A curse has come to me and mine, — 

There is no luck about the house. 

The grass has withered from my lawn, 

And blasted are my chestnut trees, 
From whose green domes in days agone 

The dawn-birds poured their melodies ; 
The stream that vanished down the vale 

With cups of comfort for my cows, 
Has failed, at last, as all things fail, — 

There is no luck about the house. 



128 The Lute of Life 



My garden now can scarce be seen, 

Gone are its beds and winding walks, 
And caterpillars, lank and lean, 

Climb down the sapless hollyhocks ; 
My meadows of their flocks are shorn, 

The hay is moldering in my mows, 
And death-worms wander in my corn, — 

There is no luck about the house. 

My horses and my hounds are gone. 

Nor any household pet remains, — 
An owl hoots on the chimney lone. 

And bats whirl darkling thro' the panes ; 
Only a cricket's dreary moan. 

Or dreamy nibbling of a mouse. 
Reminds me of the summers flown, — 

There is no luck about the house. 

At midnight when the autumn rains 

Are chill upon the dismal flats, 
I hear a sound, like clanking chains, 

Upstairs among the garret rats ; 
And then the ghosts of other times 

Reel round me in a mad carouse, 
With all their follies and their crimes, — 

There is no luck about the house. 



TO JOHN CLARK RIDPATH 

[On the completion of hi's "Great Races of Mankind"] 

The last white stone lies on the Pyramid, 
The toils are ended, and the tools are hid ; 
The Master Workman from his task retires 
To seek at last the respite he requires. 

Mankind will come to-morrow with wide eyes. 
To view the structure and to criticise, — 
Yet little boots it what the world may say. 
To him whose labor was the noblest pay. 



The Lute of Life 129 



INDIANA 

Fair daughter of the flowerful middle-West, 
Smooth-Hmbed and many-sistered ! Unto thee, 
In languor lolling 'neath thy beechen tree, 
We pour libations of the mellowest 
Catawba that swart Autumn ever pressed 
Amid thy purpling valleys. — Indiana! We 
Who know thee, and have known thee longest, see 
Thy ripening beauty courted and caressed 
By statesmen, sapient as the seers of Rome — 
By orators as fluent as the Greek — 

By poets, silver-sweet, whose Dorian lays 
Soft-syllable the sanctities of home : — 
To shield thy charms and share thy dimpled cheek, 
Brave men have fronted Death in other days. 



THE FIRST GRAY HAIR 

And thou hast come at last, 
Thou baleful issue of the buried years — 

Sad fruitage of the past, — 
Root-nurtured in a loam of hopes and fears ; 
I hail thee, but I hate thee, lurking there, 
Thou first gray hair. 

Thou soft and silken coil. 
Thou milk-white blossom in a midnight tress ! 

Out from the alien soil 
I 'U pluck thee in thine infant tenderness, 
As the rude husbandman uproots the tare, 
Thou first gray hair. 

Of all the fleecy flock. 
Thou art the one to loathe and to despise ; 

The cheat within the shock, 
The mold that on the early harvest lies. 
The mildew on the blossoms of the pear — 
Thou first gray hair. 



I30 The Lute of Life 



And thou the Judas art, 
The tattler of Old Time, who doth betray 

The weary worn-out heart 
Ere yet we dare to dream of its decay ; 
Thou art a hint of wreck beyond repair, 
Thou first gray hair. 



THE CHOICE 

When God made man, 
Placing him fair before Him, thus He spake : 

"Five gifts are in My span, 
Of which four only shalt thou choose and take." 

Then the All-Wise 
Lay Love, Forgetfulness, and Rest, and Death, 

And Hope before his eyes, 
Watching his actions with abated breath. 

Man wept a space, 
With downcast lids and trembling lips, and then 

Took Death in his embrace. 
As the best boon that might be given men. 

Pausing a time. 
As one deep-shadowed by some dire distress, 

Some agony sublime, 
He stroked his brow and chose Forgetfulness. 

Two gifts of three 
Remained in the Almighty's upturned palm, 

"Give me Love next," said he, 
With face as steady as a star and calm. 

One gift of two 
Still glistened, gemlike, there, as bravely stept 

The frail one forth, and drew 
The pearl of Hope — whereat Jehovah wept ! 



The Lute of Life 131 

Then pity prest 
The God-heart all so tenderly and deep, 

That, in the place of Rest, 
He mercifully gave His creature Sleep. 



A WINTER NIGHT AMONG MY BOOKS 

To-night I 'm in a reading mood, 

And long to be left all alone 
Beside the fire, heaped high with wood. 

Where I can hear the north-wind moan, 
And shutters bang, and gables creak, 

The while I sit and toast my. toes 
The bleakest night of all the week, 

And read, forgetful of repose. 

And read the books — the restful books — 

The books that in our breasts abide, — 
The books that warm the ingle-nooks 

More cheerily than all beside. 
My Browning lies upon the shelf, 

I '11 not disturb him, — for I wish 
To satisfy my soul's sweet self 

To-night with some more dainty dish. 

Not subtle Shelley's sugared verse, 

Nor Byron's pessimistic strain, 
Nor Dryden's couplets, like a hearse. 

Slow-grinding thro' the weary brain, — 
To-night I find not any use 

For those old bugle-throated bards ; 
I rather choose some humbler muse 

Whose feeling with mine own accords — 

Some minstrel with a whittled reed 
Or homely hick'ry pipe, who plays 

The simpler melodies that lead 
Our mem'ries back to other days, — 



132 The Lute of Life 

Some riant Riley's rustic flute, 
Some quaint refrain of Eugene Field, 

Some shy Lee Harris, all too mute, 
Some Parker, singing half-concealed. 

These are the poet-voices — these. 

And such as these, that I would fain 
Call round my lonely hearth to ease 

The aching of my heart and brain ; — 
Their songs are warm as blood, and red 

With tender sympathies, and so 
I love them best, alive or dead, — 

These bards the common people know. 



LINES TO A TERRAPIN 

O terrapin, terrapin ! whither away, 

Thou slow-moving, evil-eyed tramp ; 
What destiny tempts thee, old pilgrim, to stray 

So far from the terrapin camp ? 
Why prowl at my garden, thou sauntering crust 

Of inscrutable cunning, — why sneak 
And recoil, lake a snake, with an air of distrust, 

When a gentleman deigneth to speak ? 

Thou toothless old triple-lashed rover, what news 

Bringest thou from the terrapin isles, — 
And what of thy trip thro' the dusks and the dews, 

O'er the pathless and perilous miles ? 
What bloody banditti beleaguer thy way. 

And where does thy lone journey trend, — 
O prince of the turtles, make answer, I pray, 

To the querulous poet, thy friend ! 

Thou Wandering Jew of the terrapin race, 

What marvelous mysteries lie 
Tormentingly locked in thy taciturn face, 

And forever unsealed in thine eye ; 



The Lute of Life 133 

For thee doth some terrapin mistress await 

In her portable palace, I wot, — 
For thee sits she night after night at the gate, 

And sadly complains of her lot. 

O terrapin, terrapin! whither away, 

Thro' the dews and the dazzle of dawn ? 
No longer, poor gypsy, thy steps I will stay. 

But will think of thee often, when gone ; 
Thy road is as rugged no doubt as my own, 

Thy heart is as sunless and sore, — 
So I wish thee good-morning, thou terrapin lone. 

And bid thee godspeed from my door. 

HER COMING 

Heigh-ho! adown the glen 
Lady Spring has come again ; 

Run to greet her — fly to meet her, — 

Nothing in the world is sweeter 
Than the winy warmth that lies 
On her lips and in her eyes. 

Ruby-throated, sapphire-eyed, 

Comes she hither, like a bride, 

Gemm'd with emeralds, and gowned 
With the dawn, and flower-crowned — 

Quickening with life and heat 

Everything beneath her feet. 

Robin Redbreast, preen your wing, — 
See, she comes, the Lady Spring! 

Bid the lark be up and drest. 

Bid the bluebird pipe his best — 
She for whom we watch and wait, 
Even now is at the gate. 

Honey-bees from everywhere 
Reel in the enchanted air, 



134 The Lute of Life 

Tipsy with the dew that drips 
From our Lady's laughing Hps, 
As she stoops, at times, to sup 
Nectar from some buttercup. 

What a world of beauty glows 
Roundabout her as she goes 
Through the dewy solitudes, 
Coaxing from the drowsy buds 
All the baby-blooms that be 
Tucked away in bush and tree! 

Come, ye minstrels, great and small. 
Give her welcome, one and all ; 

Run to greet her — fly to meet her, — 
Nothing in the world is sweeter 
Than the cadence of her voice, 
Bidding everything rejoice. 



WHEN RILEY WRITES 

When Riley writes, a sudden thrill 

Of joy or grief is wont to fill 
Our lifted lids to overflow 
With visions of the Long-Ago, 

And old dead loves that haunt us still. 

In every note we catch the thrill 
Of wild-birds on some Hoosier hill, 
Or in the pawpaw lands below. 
When Riley writes. 

Through him the dear old days distill 
Their honey-dews of song, until 

Their sweetness sets our hearts aglow ,- 
We know him well, and well we know 
A master's hand is at the quill 
When Riley writes. 



The Lute of Life i35 



SICK IN THE CITY 

for just one cup of water from the old well over 

there 
In the country, where it bubbles from the bucket free 

as air ! 
Day after day, night after night, as wide awake I 've 

lain, 
With parching lips, and blood as hot as fire in every 

vein, 

1 've longed for just a swallow from the old well on 

the farm, 
Where the willow branches fan it thro' the summers 

long and warm — 
Where the grass is green around it, and the skies above 

are clear, 
And the clover hills are blossoming and God himself 

is near. 

This water of the city is a rather poor excuse. 

Especially in summer, for an invalid to use ; — 

They may praise it — if they like it — they may drink it, 

if they will. 
And pipe it from their patent pumps up yonder on the 

hill. 
But speaking for myself alone, it fails to satisfy 
The thirst I feel, nor can I learn to like it, if I try ; 
So, Calvin, in the morning, take a bucket on your arm, 
And go and fetch some water from the old well on the 

farm. 

Yes, it 's whimsical and foolish, I admit, and yet when 

one 
Has grown up in the country, where the waters leap 

and run. 
And the rocks are dark and mossy, and the gurgle of 

the springs 
Is heard along the hollow, where the heavy shadow 

clings — 



136 The Lute of Life 

I say, when one 's accustomed to the country and its 

ways, 
It 's hard to overcome it, and break off, in later days ; 
And so you '11 have to humor me, when recollections 

swarm 
And lead away my fancy to the old well on the farm. 

The old well ! I can see it through the morning-glory 

leaves 
That clambered round the kitchen-porch and up the 

cabin-eaves ; 
I can see the dangling bucket, and can hear the crystals 

drip 
In rivulets of laughter from its overflowing lip. 
O, the picture is so pleasing, so refreshing, and so plain. 
The foolish tears are falling from my fevered lids like 

rain, 
And ere the vision passes I must lift a feeble arm 
And beg a little water from the old well on the farm. 



THE VALE OF GOLD 

[They tell of a wonderful valley in the Sierra Madre, 
which glistens with gold and is resplendent with 
bright waters and beautiful flowers. Connected 
with it are many fascinating legends of Indian ori- 
gin, the prettiest of which is the belief of the na- 
tives that Montezuma will some day return and 
free them from the dominion of the descendants 
of the Conquestodores.] 

Far to the south and west there lies. 

Away in the sunset land. 
Where the weird Sierra lifts to the skies 

The wealth of her jeweled hand — 
There lies deep-hid in the mountain range, 

As old as the world is old, 
A fabulous valley, dim and strange, 

That is known as the Vale of Gold. 



The Lute of Life 137 

Never a white man's foot has crossed 

An Eden as fair as this, 
Since bidding adieu to the one he lost 

On the brim of the world, I wis ; 
There are flowers as bright as the orbs of night, 

And birds of radiant wing — 
And streams that quiver and dance forever 

In time to the tunes they sing. 

There 's a golden grot, and a golden ledge, 

And blooms of gold, and golden bees, — 
Gold in the grass and the sighing sedge, 

And gold in the orange trees ; 
There 's gold in the stars, and gold in the stream. 

And gold in the skin of the snake — 
Gold in the moon when the dreamers dream, 

And gold in the morn when they wake. 

And a seer hath writ on a golden stone. 

In a golden time of the past, 
How the Montezumas will mount their throne 

Again in the valley vast ; 
And the fires of the Aztec priests will burn 

Once more on the altars cold, 
And the gods of the vanquished race return 

To reign in the Vale of Gold. 



THE CITY OF SNOW 

Silently, silently, all the night. 

Out in the fields, where the north-winds blow, 
A shimmering army, robed in white, 

Is building the City of Snow. 

Hour after hour their task they ply, 
Down where the roses used to grow, 

Piling the battlements steep and high 
Of the silent City of Snow. 



138 The Lute of Life 



Out in the dark in the driving storm, 
To and fro they glimmer and glow 

All night, as their deft hands frame and form 
The mystic City of Snow. 

Never the sound of a hammer smites 
The milk-white silence, above or below, 

And dumber than dreams are the dapper sprites 
That build the City of Snow. 

'T is morn ! and the labor is all complete. 
And the cold north-wind has ceased to blow, 

And Vandal feet are abroad in the street 
Of the sinless City of Snow. 



ECLIPSE OF THE MOON 

(JAN. 16, 1889) 

The lady-moon is full of pain, 
And on her pallid face there lies 

A shadow, like the first deep stain 
Of sin upon a wanton's eyes. 

A vaunting, flaunting, jealous queen. 
To-night her pride is all undone. 

For lo ! a rival moves between 
Her own breast and her lord, the sun. 

A little space of inward strife 

More terrible than tongue can speak. 
And then the shadow lifts, and life 

Comes bounding back into her cheek- 
Comes leaping — and her lover's eyes 

Again are hers, and hers his lips — 
And all the stars that crowd the skies 

Keep laughing at the moon's eclipse. 



The Lute of Life 139 



THE OLD FIRE-PLACE 

The blessed old fire-place! how bright it appears, 

As back in my boyhood I gaze, 
O'er the desolate waste of the vanishing years. 

From the gloom of these lone latter-days; 
Its lips are as ruddy, its heart is as warm, 

To my fancy, to-night, as of yore, 
When we cuddled around it, and smiled at the storm 

As it showed its white teeth at the door. 

I remember the apple that wooed the red flame 

Till the blood bubbled out of its cheek, — 
And the passionate pop-corn that smothered its shame 

Till its heart split apart with a shriek; 
I remember the Greeks and the Trojans who fought, 

In their shadowy shapes on the wall. 
And the yarn, in thick tangles, my fingers held taut 

While my mother was winding the ball. 

I remember the cat that lay cozy and curled 

By the jamb, where the flame flickered high. 
And the sparkles — the fire-flies of winter — that whirled 

Up the flue, as the wind whistled by; 
I remember the bald-headed, bandy-legg'd tongs, 

That frowned like a fiend in my face, 
In a fury of passion, repeating the wrongs 

They had borne in the old fire-place. 

I remember the steam from the kettle that breathed, 

As soft as the flight of a soul, — 
The long-handled skillet that spluttered and seethed 

With the batter that burthened its bowl; 
I remember the rusty, identical nail 

Where the criminal pot-hooks were hung, — 
The dragon-faced andirons, the old cedar pail, 

The gourd, and the peg where it swung. 



I40 The Lute of Life 

But the fire has died out on the old cabin hearth, 

The wind clatters loud thro' the pane, 
And the dwellers, — they 're flown to the ends of the 
earth, 

And will gaze on it never again ; 
A forget-me-not grows in the moldering wall. 

The last as it were of its race, 
And the shadows of night settle down like a pall 

On the stones of the old fire-place. 

AT THE TELESCOPE 

Through this magic tube we trace 
All the star-flecked fields of space, — 

O'er this bridge of burnished glass 

With a hasty glance we pass 
To creation's fiery core, 
Where the red-ranked planets roar 

Round exhaustless suns, and where, 

In dim gardens of the air, 
We can see, amidst the gloom, 
New worlds bursting into bloom. 

We have climbed the girdling bars 

Built around the farthest stars, 
And our questing eye has scaled 
Heights that Nature's hand had veiled — 

Standing on this hill's green slope. 

Peering through the telescope. 
We, with wonder-wakened eyes, 
Walk the meadows of the skies, 

Where the constellations red 

Hang in clusters overhead. 

Strange that in an instant's span 

We can reach Aldebaran, 

On a steed that moves not. — Strange, 
How our idle glance can range 

Up the pathless Alps of air 



The Lute of Life 141 

In a twinkle to Atair, — 

Strange that we can loop and tie 
Solar systems with our eye, 

Weigh the wreck'd worlds whirling past 

In their orbits through the Vast. 

Ah, the hand that framed the night 
Modeled us, and shaped our sight — 

Gifted us with power to scan 

Parts of His perfected plan — 
Fashioned every sense to fit 
The divine designs of it — 

Made each thing to correspond 

With its counterpart beyond — 
Made creation's harp, and then 
Tuned it to the minds of men. 



THE OLD VILLAGE DEPOT 

There stands the old station-house, out in the rain, 

A stone's throw away from my door, 
With its wind-shaken wall, and its weather-racked 
pane. 

And its rickety, rat-haunted floor ; 
Its sashes are seamed, and its lintels are gashed 

With the jack-knives of twenty long years; 
And the eaves, where the wings of the swallows once 
flashed. 

Seem touched with a kinship of tears. 

Old house ! it looms up like a ghost in the gale, 

And gibbers and groans in the blast. 
And speaks with a weird and a weariless wail 

Of the dim, irretrievable past ; 
On the old dingy platform that girdles it round 

The wealth of the prairie once poured, 
And daily the carriage of commerce came down 

With the wares of the stranger aboard. 



142 The Lute of Life 

'T was here, when our brothers went off to the wars, 

We blessed them and bade them adieu ; 
And we welcomed them, here, 'neath a banner of stars, 

When the terrible conflict was through ; 
And here where the barefooted boys are at play, 

The war trumpets thundered of yore, — 
And here came the coffins, in ghastly array. 

Of the dear soldier-dead to our door. 

'T was here the young bride, in her beauty and bloom, 

To her cheek felt the parting kiss press'd. 
And here beat with rapture the heart of the groom. 

As he cradled her form on his breast; 
And here in his squalor the beggar has crept 

To shelter himself from the blast, 
In the merciless midnight, and dreamed as he slept 

Of the happier days of the past. 

And here came the message, more fleet than the dove, 

O'er the wavering, wandering wire. 
That filled us with grief or that thrilled us with love, 

As we peacefully sat by the fire; 
Ah, the old station-house ! it will soon tumble down, 

Its timbers are crumbling away ; 
But its record is writ on the heart of the town, 

And its glory abideth for aye. 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

He dwelt within the charnel-house of Time, 
A kindred spirit of the rayless gloom, 
A lynx within the shadow of a tomb. 

Where slept unnumbered centuries of crime; 

And loathsome passions, in their evil prime, 
Writhed in his bosom, stinging to its doom 
That sombre, solitary soul, for whom 

No bells of mortal cheer were heard to chime. 



The Lute of Life 143 

No common lot was his ! what songs he sang 
Were but the echoes of abysmal seas 

That burst upon the shores of his despair; 
Or but the thunder of the spheres that rang 
Against his heart in rhythmic agonies, 

And roused the drowsy demons lurking there. 

No love, no hope, no image of delight, 
No lip to kiss, no joy in any guise, 
Naught but the ashen lustre of the skies. 

And the mute torment of eternal night. 

Were his — and the wan spirit's hideous plight ; 
He looked upon the worm that never dies, 
And in the crimson riddle of its eyes 

He read the augury of endless blight. 

A Titan genius of seraphic power. 

Madly he swept the joyless lute, and wove 
Fantastic melodies of untamed love 

Round every soul, like starlight round a tower, 
Then perished of his passions, ere the dove 

From o'er the foam brought in the olive-flower. 



IN SICKNESS 

(acknowledging gift 0? flowers) 

Thy gift of flowers, O friends sincere, 
I can but answer with a tear, 
For words of mine can ill express 
The gratitude my eyes confess. 

I feel that in this world of ours 
There is a sisterhood of flowers. 
Whose gentle ministrations reach 
Beyond the outer gates of speech. 

Some souls there are so beautiful 
They turn from daily toil to cull 



144 The Lute of Life 

1 he syllables of love that drip 
In music from the rose's lip. 

And such are thine, O gracious hearts, 
Whose wealth of beauty thus imparts 
Its fragrance to a soul like mine. 
That bides, serene, the Will Divine. 



MY LADY BEAUTIFUL 

Could I, in two sweet sonnets, here condense 
The honied praise and compliments of all 
The poets of the earth since Adam's fall, — 

Or could my light-winged fancy, flying thence, 

Beyond the girdling barricades of sense. 

The subtle strength of future song forestall — 
Were such my gifts, I 'd build a temple tall 

Of royal homage, walled with eloquence, 

Within whose purple court, upon a throne 
Of silken despotism, I would place 

The snowy empress of my soul's desire ; — 

Her dynasty should be my heart, alone, 
Her passions be to mine as food and fire, 

And pasture for mine eyes her body's grace. 

And twinkling Cupids nightly to her sleep, 
In clouds of riant rivalry would throng, — 
And in the meshes of her ringlets long, 

A breathless vigil o'er the dreamer keep ; 

Nor ever should a tell-tale teardrop peep 

From out her dewy lids, — nor from her tongue 
Should aught escape but laughter and sweet song. 

And discourse dreamfully devout and deep. 

No pirate winds — no prowling plagues — should creep. 
By night or day, within her wreathen shrine, — 

The stairway to her heart should be so steep 
That it would echo to no tread but mine, — 

And I, through all the dear Idalian days, 

Would lull the princess with love's roundelays. 



The Lute of Life 145 



FAITH AND DUTY 

God made me; I will not apologize, — 

The workmanship is His ; if firm and fair, 
The credit of its strength I do not share ; 

If it be rudely reared, and men despise 

Its quaint design, and deign to criticise, 
I make no murmur for I have no care, — 
I question not the Builder, here nor there, 

Believing still that all His ways are wise. 

This is the one sweet duty that I claim : 

To keep the palace-chambers cool and pure 
And lily-chaste within, while they endure, 

And all the many turret-lights aflame ; — 

To pour love's wine, and bid the world take part, 
Around the purple altars of my heart. 



THE OLD CAPTAIN 

[Written upon the death of Capt. Reuben A. Riley, 
father of James Whit comb Riley.'] 

A friend of freedom, strong and, withal, 

A hero such as a Carlyle drew, 

With a heart to dare and a hand to do. 
And a zeal that answered at duty's call ; 
His was the breast that burned with ire 

When a foe uprose in the land below — 
His was the speech that flamed like fire, 

And kindled all hearts with a kindred glow. 

His was the flesh that felt the steel 
In the battle's van, and his the nerve 
Never to waver and never to swerve 

Till borne, half-dead, from the cannon's wheel ; 

But nobler yet was the heart that laid 
Contention aside at the conflict's close — 

He reaped death's field with a ready blade, 
But after the struggle forgot his foes. 



146 The Lute of Life 



He was a man of the antique mold, 
A Hoosier chief of the Celtic breed, 
The kind of a man that a People need 

When prowling wolves break into the fold ; 

He stood four-square to the winds that blow, 
A Galahad, even, who knew no guile, 

And went to his rest as the good knights go. 
At the king's first call, with a kindly smile. 



MORNING IN THE WOODS 

The dewy woods at daybreak are to me 
A breathing dream of God's benignity, 
Wherein the unhoused spirit hears and sees 
The green-leafed gospel of His mysteries. 

Adown the dripping aisles of morning come 
The songs of summer, mingling with the hum 
Of hurrying insects, jostling as they pass 
Along the breezy boulevards of grass. 

The cooling crystals quiver on the braid 
Of interlacing branches, and the shade 
Is sprayed and sodden with the wasted wine 
Where Old Silenus and the Goat-foot dine. 

Out from the sable scabbard of the night 
Flashes a saber-stream against the light, 
While high o'erhead, beneath the tent-like trees. 
The greenwood athletes scale their slim trapeze. 

At dawn of day the dripping mint distills 
Its pungent passion thro' the waking hills, 
Nor human presence saddens or profanes 
The cool primeval haunts where Nature reigns. 

No trampling feet, no snapping twig, no sound 
Of higher life is heard in the profound 



The Lute of Life 147 



And melancholy forest, than the harsh 

Cry of the blue-crane rising from the marsh. 

A sibilance of semi-silence fills 
The vasty interspaces of the hills — 
A dull, eternal whispering- of wings. 
Like elfin frettings of a lute's lax strings. 

A quiet harmony that never tires 
Outbreathes forever from the blended choirs, 
And fair as any Eden-dream can be, 
The dewy woods at daybreak are to me. 



THE IDEALIST 

He has pondered long the plan 

Of nature and of man, 
And is won to the conclusion 
That all matter is illusion, 

And that all we see or seem 
Is but the dim conclusion 
Of a dream; 

That nothing here is real 
Save the unseen, the ideal. 
The strenuous warm motion 
Of the soul that, like an ocean, 
Throbs and sobs along the shore, 
In a kind of blind devotion, 
Evermore ; 

That which we prize of earth 
Is of little weight or worth, 
For it passes as we view it, 
And howe'er we may pursue it 
With a passion to adore — 
We can ne'er attain unto it. 
Evermore. 



148 The Lute of Life 

Yet Love's self is never vain, 
It can neither lose nor gain, 
Here nor there. — It is an essence 
That enlarges not nor lessens 
Under sun or sea or sod, — 
It is but the living presence 
Of a god. 

Life and Love are one, and are 
All in all, from star to star; — 
To the end from the beginning 
When our spirits were sent spinning 
Down eternity's long groove, 

Nothing has been worth the winning, 
Saving love. 



AN UNDECORATED GRAVE 

I turned aside — I could not bear 

To see them break ranks, then and there, 

With flowers and flags on every grave. 
Save one — save one, obscure, alone. 
Unmarked by any kindly stone, 

Where slept the bravest of the brave. 

As slowly thro' the gate withdrew 
The bent and broken files of blue, 
I stepped aside, and when the last 
Grim vet'ran from the place had passed, 
I took from every tufted tomb 
A single slender spray of bloom. 
And wove a garland for the grave 
Where slept the bravest of the brave. 

Not any mangled martyr lay 
In that neglected spot, nay! nay! 
Nor hero who by ball or blade 
Had died upon the barricade — 



The Lute of Life 149 

'T was but a woman whom the wave 
Of war had swept into the grave, 
A poor and broken-hearted slave! 
A dusky mother, whom the fate 
Of arms had flung against the gate 
Of freedom, in the wild fourth year 
Of havoc — God, I wept for her. 
Poor soul ! who never lived to see 
Her brood of braves, unchained and free, 
Come home across the crimson sea 
Of death, with shouts of victory. 

And so, and so, I could not bear 
To see the column break rank there, 
Unmindful of the humble grave 
Of that poor broken-hearted slave. 
Whose all for liberty she gave. 



IF 

If all who hate would love us. 

And all our loves were true, 
The stars that swing above us 

Would brighten in the blue ; 
If cruel words were kisses, 

And every scowl a smile, 
A better world than this is 

Would hardly be worth while ; 
If purses would untighten 

To meet a brother's need, 
The load we bear would lighten 

Above the grave of greed. 

If those who whine would whistle. 
And those who languish laugh. 

The rose would rout the thistle. 
The grain outrun the chaff ; 

If hearts were only jolly, 



150 The Lute of Life 

If grieving were forgot, 
And tears and melancholy 

Were things that now are not — 
Then Love would kneel to Duty, 

And all the world would seem 
A bridal-bower of beauty, 

A rose-enraptured dream. 

If men would cease to worry, 

And women cease to sigh, 
And all be glad to bury 

Whatever has to die — 
If neighbor spake to neighbor 

As Love demands of all, 
The rust would eat the sabre. 

The spear stay on the wall ; 
Then every day would glisten, 

And every eye would shine, 
And God would pause to listen, 

And life would be divine. 



NOT A POET 

However gifted, he no poet is 

Who does not, in his amplitude of soul, 
Infold with pity, and with tears condole. 

The faults and failings of a world like this — 

Who does not, with the God-like grace that 's his. 
Give love unto the loveless, and console 
The helpless and the hopeless, making whole 

The broken-hearted with brave dreams of bliss. 

God pity the poor player who but tunes 
His soulless harp to please a prince's ear, 

Oblivious of the underworld that swoons, 
In unmelodious gloom, from year to year; 

He has no title to the poet's art 

Who has no poet's feeling in his heart. 



The Lute of Life 151 



TWENTY YEARS AFTER 

[Read at the celebration of the Twentieth Anniversary 
of the University of Illinois.] 

O what can be said on a day like this, 

When the heart is brimmed, as a stirrup-cup. 
With the loves and the dreams and the far-off bliss 

Of the dead old days, as they wander up, 
One by one, in a glimmering line, 

Thro' the purple dusk of the waning years, — 
O what can be said by a lip like mine. 

When the soul sits mute in a sleet of tears ? 

Tears of revery — tears of joy — 

Tears for the times that come no more 
To the fair-haired girl and the bright-eyed boy 

Who trod these halls in the days of yore ; — 
We leave the laughter, and all the smiles, 

To the lighter hearts of the latter time, 
As we go galloping down the miles 

Of the past, to the ring of an older rhyme. 

None can follow us whither we fare, 

And never an alien eye can see 
The gray ghosts gathering over there 

On the lonesome hill, where we used to be ; 
None can follow us, none can know 

Of the scenes we see and the sounds we hear 
When the winds of March in the larches blow. 

And the nights grow late, and our dreams grow clear. 

The years come back in a snowy score. 

But only as dreams ; — and we sigh, in vain. 
As we wait down there, at the open door. 

For the boys that never come back again, — 
For Abbott, and Buel, and Snelling, and Crane, 

And Krafft, and Reiss, and Hazzard, and Dole, 
And all the rest of the glorious train. 

Who come no more as the years unroll. 



152 The Lute of Life 

God be with them wherever they are, 

The knightly fellows we used to know, 
Blown by the winds of the world afar 

From the old ball-ground of the Long Ago ; 
God be with them wherever they be, 

And cuddle them close in His loving arms, 
Whether they wander the stormy sea 

Or follow the plows on their fruited farms. 

One lies dead at the Golden Gate, 

And one in the North, — and one I knew 
And loved in the flush of his youth elate, 

Sleeps to the South, in the dark and the dew ; 
And many have passed that we know not of. 

To the lampless land, since the dear old times 
When the world was warm with the wine of love 

And the red blood ran in a ripple of rhymes. 

So I repeat (as a man in his wine), 

Facing the fact as it fairly is. 
What can be said by a lip like mine. 

Of a past like that, in an hour like this? 
Where are the boys, now? beckon them up! 

Bid them to come, whether guest or ghost, 
And sing as of old, as the circling cup 

Steadies the heart for a farewell toast. 

One to the living, and one to the dead. 

And one to the years that are yet to be. 
When the children we fondle, each little tow-head, 

Shall still gather fruit from this bountiful tree; 
One cup to the present, and one to the past, 

And one to the old recollections that beat 
At the doors of our hearts, like birds of the blast. 

Driven into the light, thro' the night and the sleet. 

A tear as a toast — come pledge it with me. 

To Baker, of memory gentle and good, — 
And one to the glory of Gregory, 



The Lute of Life 153 

And the stalwart souls that around him stood 
In the old regime, when the ways were dim 

With the smoke of scorn and the dust of doubt, 
And the task of a Titan fell on him 

As he raveled the tangled problems out. 

A health to Snyder, and Stuart, and Bliss, 

To Burrill, and Shattuck, — and last, I say, 
To good Peabody, whose pride it is 

To mark his reign with a kindly sway ; — 
The old dreams perish — old customs change — 

The gold dawn glimmers above the gray, 
And the world moves up to a higher range, 

With fairer promises, day by day. 

Twenty times one ! how long it seems 

From the first spring flower to the first snowfall ! 
Twenty times one ! and the sun's last beams 

Sleep on the hills, and the shadows crawl 
Farther and farther into the east, 

And the Hope of the morning folds its palm, — 
And the lights burn low, and the evening feast 

Is done, — and the stars shine clear and calm. 

THE PLACE BEAUTIFUL 

There is a place — a strange and narrow strip — 

Unmarked as yet on any map or chart, 
A bloomy bourn, where milk and honey drip, 

And all things are that satisfy the heart ; 
'T is no man's land, and yet it lies so near 

That all the world, alike the rich and poor, 
Can share its beauty and enjoy its cheer, 

One golden moment, as they cross it o'er. 

Not Arcady — not even Avalon — 

Nor Temple Vale with its enchanted bowers. 

Can match the dewy lustre lying on 
This peaceful realm of laughter, light, and flowers ; 



154 The Lute of Life 



And if a weary pilgrim ever sue 

For guidance to a land of lesser sins, 

May some good spirit lead him forth to view 
The place where friendship ends and love begins. 



A NIGHT IN NOVEMBER. 

The lady-moon lies coffined in a cloud; 

The winds are up, and from the sobbing boughs 
The last leaves fall ; far off, a wild goose plows 

The slanting sky, with ululations loud, 

Like a lost soul ; the browning woods are bowed 
With dreams of shattered splendor ; half a-drowse, 
A leaf-choked stream steals round the frosty brows 

Of amber hills, that northward nudge and crowd. 

Adown the air, at intervals, is borne 

The far, faint blast of Boreal bugles, like 

The dim and distant murmur of a vast 
Invading army, gathering strength to strike — 
While out across the fallow fields forlorn 
The spectre of a storm is striding past. 



^MEN ARE APRIL WHEN THEY WOO" 

Fickle maid, with laughing eye, 

You who seldom sob or sigh. 
Bear with patient soul and kind 
Love's appeal, for love is blind; 

Con the adage trite but true, 

"Men are April when they woo." 

Answer not with scoff and scorn 

If a lover all forlorn 

Bend on you his eager face. 
Pleading low your sovereign grace; 

Give good heed, yet keep in view, 

"Men are April when they woo." 



The Lute of Life 155 



Still a further secret know: 

April breezes often blow 

Into storms that rage and grind, 
Leaving wreck and death behind ; 

So, beware! my pretty shrew, 

"Men are April when they woo." 

She who dallies most will learn 
'Tis not best to slight and spurn 
Passion, wheii it shines and speaks 
In the eyes and on the cheeks, 
Even tho' the saw be true, 
"Men are April when they woo." 



'TIS ALWAYS SUNDAY IN THE WOODS 

" 'T is always Sunday in the woods," 

She said — the bonnie wife of mine — 
As thro' the leaf-walled solitudes 

We passed beneath the arching vine ; 

_We saw the sunbeams slant and shine, 
Like tongues of flame at Pentecost, — 

We sipped the sacramental wine 
From many a chalice gold-emboss'd. 

Outlined against the templed hills. 

The living symbols of the Lord 
We saw, — and down a thousand rills 

The praises of His name were poured ; 

Above us mighty organs roared, 
And hidden pipers blew and blew 

Such strains of heavenly accord 
As never art attaineth to. 

The aisles were carpeted with flowers, 
The pews with emerald were plushed. 

And from a hundred wreathen towers 
The silver chimes of morning gushed ; 



156 The Lute of Life 



Anon, and all the space was hushed, 
As when, within cathedrals dim, 

The body of the Christ is crushed, 
And Christians quaff the blood of Him. 

'T is always Sunday in the woods ! 

The cattle down the valley pass, 
In lazy-moving multitudes, 

To where the river gleams like glass; 

The birds, in one symphonic mass 
Of benedictions, flood the airs, 

And all the insect-haunted grass 
Is sibilant with whispered prayers. 

Around the rock-built altars crowd 

The patient oaks, as prone to pour 
Their pseans to the bannered cloud 

In golden glory floating o'er ; 

Green-robed, they stand forevermore 
Within their dreamy vastitudes. 

Devout as Druids to the core — 
'T is always Sunday in the woods. 



A GARLAND FOR THE DEAD 

Dumb be the bugle and the drum. 

And light the footsteps o'er the brave ; 

'Tis not in festal throng we come. 
With lips that laugh and plumes that wave ; 

Nay ! nay ! a holier task is ours, — 

Love writes his elegy with flowers. 

When May drops down the rolling year, 
And lightly leads her choral train, 

We turn with loving homage here 
To strew these tokens o'er the slain — 

O'er those who perished when the tide 

Of wild war swept the country wide. 



The Lute of Life 157 



Each rounded fortress at our feet 

Enwraps a hero's patriot fire, — 
Long since that heart has ceased to beat, 

That vaHant spirit to aspire; 
Nor sabre's clang nor cannon's roar 
Shall break the warrior's slumber more. 

Among the tombs we idly stray, 

Our souls with mournful memories rife, 

Till almost in the glare of day 
Those wasted comrades spring to life; 

And here, amidst the fields and flowers. 

We seem to clasp dead hands in ours. 

Nor here alone does memory trace 
Her sable lines of dumb despair, — 

On many a distant battle-place 

Their eyeless sockets upward stare. 

Where never weeping kindred come 

With bended head and mufiled drum. 

They sleep beside the Tennessee, 

By Donelson's old ruined fort; 
In Sherman's pathVay to the sea 

The pale battalions hold their court; 
From Franklin, Shiloh, Malvern Hill, 
They answer to the death-roll still. 

On Mission Ridge the wild-birds chant 
Above the gray blouse and the blue, 

And where the gallant hosts of Grant 

Stormed \^icksburg, there the dead are, too; 

Their records, writ with shot and shell. 

Show how they fought and how they fell. 

They rest by Libby's ruined pile. 

From Georgia's hell their wraiths arise; 

They sleep beside the dark Belle Isle, 
And 'neath the Carolina skies, — 



158 The Lute of Life 

A shadowy band and desolate, 
Whose graves no hand may decorate. 

By dim lagoons where serpents trail, 
And seMom human footsteps pass, 

Their bones are whitening in the gale 
And glistening in the tangled grass, 

Their guns still mold'ring in their grasp— 
The friends that felt their parting clasp. 

The pyramids by Cheops built 
At length shall crumble and decay, 

But never blood for Freedom spilt 

The tears of heaven shall wash away ; 

A sacred symbol shall it be 

Of those who died for liberty. 



A HYMN OF CONSOLATION 

[A friend of the ivriter, having lost an only child, and 
finding small comfort in the promises of science, 
and still less in the unsatisfying tenets of diversiHed 
beliefs, despairingly inquires' if the poets, as a class, 
accept the doctrine of immortality.] 

What use is your philosophy, my friend. 
Your boasted science faithfully pursued, 

If still you can not see beyond the end 
The growing proof of some eternal good? 

Of what avail the midnight toil of years, 
The patient poring over books, apart, 

If, after all, the only end be tears 
Forever falling on a doubting heart? 

What boots the pallor of your aching brow, 
Bent with the weight of cold, scholastic lore, 

If you can not discover, even now. 

Some little glimmer of the farther shore? 



The Lute of Life 159 

If science can not soothe your heart's unrest, 
Nor pledge of priesthood palliate your pain, 

Go to the poets with your wants confess'd, 
And you shall seek for solace not in vain. 

On their large vision lovingly rely, 

The prophets they, who walk the outer wall, — 
The oracles of immortality, 

On whose white brows the deathless splendors fall. 

Like those brave doves that left the stranded Ark, 
Our poets breast the deluge and the strife. 

And o'er the waste of waters, wild and dark. 
Bring back the tokens of eternal life. 

If disappointed still, go feed your fire 
With every dreary and delusive scroll 

Which fails to satisfy the high desire 

That pleads to-night for answer in your soul. 

Then turn at last to Nature! Lie full prone 
Upon her breast with meek, submissive heart, 

And heed the consolations which, alone. 
Her lips with fullest fervency impart. 

What proofs are hers, you ask? No idle play 
Of empty vaporings, but one vast breath 

Of blest assurance, brimming all the day 
With floods of promise overflowing death. 

The smallest atom at her finger-tips 

Gives death the lie and puts to flight all fear; 
The rose of hope still reddens on her lips. 

And ripens to new beauty, year by year. 

There is a future! The reviving grass 
That slowly conquers the unyielding sod 

Proclaims that naught eternally can pass 
Beyond the quick, recalling touch of God. 



i6o The Lute of Life 



There is a future ! Life is but begun ! 

Unaging' planets, singing as they roll 
Their golden revolutions round the sun, 

Make proclamation of it to the soul. 

She is not dead, that little girl of yours. 
Nothing that ever lived shall ever die— 

For Life itself is but a phase of Force, 
And Force the flower of Immortality. 



OLD SOLDIERS 

From corner to corner the old men shift, — 

Shift together from shade to shine, — 
Battered old ships of the line adrift. 

Tumbled and tossed by the breeze and brine; 
Jolly old fellows, they flock together 

Here and there in the patches of sun, 
Crippled and wrinkled, and brown as leather, 

Each with a story of brave deeds done. 

Gray their heads, but their hearts are glad — 

Glad with the dreams of an elder day 
When the face of the world was not so sad. 

And not so eager to turn away ; 
These are the men who stood four-square 

To the storms that blew, when the earthquake shock 
Of battle broke on the startled air 

And we felt the fortress of freedom rock. 

We smile to-day as we pass them by 

With barely a thought of the time when they, 
With bounding step and with beaming eye, 

Followed the old proud flag away 
To the music of pulsing drums that beat 

Far back in the bloody years, when we 
Were children playing about the street, 

As fleet of foot as the winds and free. 



The Lute of Life i6i 

But ah ! in the books of the after-time, 

In the land of Hberty's large advance, 
These men will live in the poet's rhyme. 

And brighten the pages of war's romance; 
To-day we laugh at the jokes they crack. 

But down in the centuries yet to be, 
Men and women will follow their track 

Through volumes of ancient history. 



A NOCTURNE 

All things that we can hear or see, 

To-night, seem happy. Every tree 
Is palpitant with voice and wing. 
And vibrant with the breathing spring. 

The very grass is tremulous 

With music, floating up to us 
So softly, spiritu'lly clear, 
We seem to feel it — not to hear. 

The moonlight's lustre leaking through 
The bending blossoms, pearled with dew. 
Is so delicious, so divine, 
We quaff its splendor like a wine. 
Only the faintest wind is curled 
About the pale, enamored world. 
And drowsy perfumes slip and drip 
From every pansy's pouting lip. 

Starlight and melody and dreams ! 

The lover's and the poet's themes, — 
The same that once entranced and won 
The listening maids of Babylon — 

That charm'd the ear and caught the smiles 

Of Beauty in the Grecian Isles, — 
That lulled in old Italian dells 
The Roman lads and damosels. 



1 62 The Lute of Life 



On such enchanting nights as these, 

Our spirits for a moment seize 
The ravishment of hfe that runs, 
Exuberant, thro' stars and suns ; 

And as we catch the whirl and whir, 

The planetary pulse and stir, 

We break the seals of sense, and scan 
The majesty of God and man. 



LOUISVILLE 
(march 27, 1890) 

Day slumbered, and the storm-dogs all were tied 
Fast by their kennels in the fading West, 
Save one, the swiftest and the savagest, 

A dreadful brute, red-fanged and fiery-eyed, 

Who slipped his slackened leash and bounded wide, 
Deep-baying, down the dusk, with shaggy breast, 
Precipitate, and panting, and possess'd 

Of terrors which the darkness multiplied. 

God ! that some Bruxton, rising in his might. 
Had choked the monster's life out ere his mouth 
Had set its teeth upon the helpless South 

And wrought the havoc of that fearful night ; — 
O Death, how multiform! O Life, how frail! 
How filmy, O Mortality, thy veil ! 



LIFE'S HOROSCOPE 

"O, what is the time of day ?" I said 

To a school-boy humming a spring-time song ; 
His feet were brown and his cheeks were red. 
And he answered, shaking his curly head, 

" 'Tis nine o'clock, and the day is long, — 
'Tis nine o'clock in the morning." 



The Lute of Life 163 

"O, what is the time of day ?" said I, 

To a farmer laboring ankle-deep 
In the new-mown hay, — and he made reply, 
As he turned a tired look at the sky, 

" 'Tis after twelve, by the watch I keep, 
And the weather is warm for reaping." 

"O, what is the time of day ?" I spake, 

To an old man crooning an old-time tune ; 
The hearth's dull embers he tried to rake 
As he heard the winds in the garret shake. 
And he said, " 'Tis late in the afternoon, 
And the night will soon be falling." 

"THE EYES OF EEEANORA" 

As the light of a star is found. 
By day, in the sunless ground. 

Where the river of silence lies, — 
So the spirit of beauty dwells, 
O love, in the mimic wells 

Of thy large, thy luminous eyes. 

As out of a turbulent night 
A lost bird turns to the light 

Of a desolate dreamer's room, — 
So, forth from the storm of thine eyes, 
A passionate splendor flies 

To my soul through the inter-gloom. 

As a lily quivers and gleams 

All night by the darkling streams 

That dream in the underlands, — 
So, up from the haunted lakes 
Of thy shadowy eyes. Love shakes 

The snows of her beck'ning hands. 

As clusters of new worlds dawn. 
When the infinite night comes on. 



1 64 The Lute of Life 

In the measureless, moonless skies — 
So the planet of love burns high, 
O sweet, when the day sweeps by, 

In the dusk of thy orient eyes. 

MARCH 

The gables of the farm-house groan, 
And down the orchard's barren rows. 
Beyond the hills, a cloud of crows 

Against the windy west is blown. 

The falling sun is fringed with mist, 
And eastward, like an Indian queen, 
The moon at intervals is seen 

Thro' dripping rifts of amethyst. 

A few stray flakes of snow — and then 
The all-night pattering on the pane 
Ot slumber-wooing sleet and rain — 

Then morning — and the winds again! 



ON PARTING WITH LOUISE 

It matters not what you may think, 
Nor matters it what I may feel, 

To-night we part upon the brink 
Of many joys — for woe or weal. 

Not any word remains to say. 
Only a silent clasp of hands — 

A smile — ^then we must turn away 
To hide what either understands. 

To you the future is a scroll 

Of golden promise ; but for me, 

I find few pledges in my soul 
Of any pleasures yet to be. 



The Lute of Life 165 



We met, and in each other's eyes 
We saw — but, O, forgive my pen ! 

The guarded gates of Paradise 

Swing open once — then close again. 

Yet would I scorn to bring one shade 
Of sadness to those bright bkie eyes ; 

I only wish the fates had stayed 
Their plans, and made them otherwise. 

But here's my hand ! Good-night— good-by — 
To every plighted vow be true ; 

Yet, sometime, when the night draws nigh. 
Give me such thoughts as I give you. ' 

TO A CRITIC 
[* * * Why not take the same trouble to write a 
poemf * * * If we were obliged to hezv sonnets 
and romances out of Egyptian granite, we would 
better appreciate what we are about. — Tui.ian Haw- 
thorns. ] 

So you would make rules for the poet, — you ! 
You would have him to hammer and grind and hew 
Till his song stood forth like a statue cold. 
Perfect of form but a thing unsouled, — 
Damn'd by a glance at the worn-out tools 
That fell from the fingers of art's dead fools ;— 
And you would make rules and rules and rules, 
And chisel out epics in shops and schools, 
And hammer out sonnets and beat out songs 
On the heart's hot anvil with sledges and tongs. 

Where is the rule that the catbird learned 
When the tide of his soul into song was turned? 
What delicate master sand-papered the throat 
Of the skylark, and polished his first wild note? 
Who modeled the music — who scribbled the score— 



1 66 The Lute of Life 



The ripples rehearse to the rock-rimmed shore? 
And where is the critic — aye, where is he — 
Who tutored the tempest and tuned the sea? 
O pitiful prater ! the skies and the seas 
Can answer the question — and only these. 



LOVE AND DUTY 

As flakes of foam or drops of dew 

Meet, melt, and mingle — shape and hue ; — 

As parted clouds together merge 

Their splendors at the twilight's verge — 

As stately ships from havens wide 

Sail home and anchor side by side — 

As warbling lutes to lovers lend 

A double rapture when they blend — 

So I conceive the soul of beauty 

Is found when Love is one with Duty. 

As flowers neglected swiftly burn 
Their lives out in the marble urn— 
As grasses droop when fresh'ning rains 
Forsake, too long, the pleading plains — 
As passions tire when those once true 
Prove recreant and turn from view — 
So Love, alas ! divorced from Duty, 
Doth perish, dispossessed of beauty, — 
And Duty, like a widowed dove, 
Disheartened dies when robbed of Love. 



IN THE LAZY TWILIGHT 

To lie in the hammock at dusk, and swing 
To the runes of the nesting birds that ring 
From the emerald tents of the tranquil trees- 
To toss all care to the cooling breeze, 
And sway and swing in a vision fond 
Of some fair land in the dim Beyond — 



The Lute of Life 167 

To turn to the past, and twine and tie 
In tangles of Fancy the days gone by — 
To waft at will in an airy boat, 
As feathery-light as the floss afloat, 
And drift and dream, and give full play 
To the soul, fair-winged, as it soars away — 
These, these are the joys that a mortal knows 
Who can laugh at the world o'er his upturned toes. 

Hard and sad is the world by day, 

When the cruel and kinglike Mind holds sway, 

But soft and glad is the twilight hour, 

When the sovereign Heart asserts its power ; 

Rough is the hand and the face hard-set 

When the brow with the beads of toil is wet. 

But sweet is the smile and soft the palm 

When the hammock swings in the evening calm — 

When the baby's throne is the father's breast. 

As he lies in the sea-grass web, at rest, 

And the fond young mother sits and sings. 

Hard by, with her hand on the trailing strings. — 

Heaven is pictured as far away. 

By bachelor-bards and hermits gray, 

But out of the twilight dim there strays 

A glint of its gold when the hammock sways. 



A FRAGMENT 

There is no panacea known 
To soothe the soul when hope is flown — 
There is no balm the wound to heal 
When Love withdraws his dripping steel. 

The mangled heart may still beat on 
When everything it prized is gone — 
Throb on, without one pleasing pain 
To indicate if life remain. 



1 68 The Lute of Life 

God pity him who can not die 
When all his dreams in ashes lie, 
And through his soul's dismantled hall 
The spectral past holds carnival. 

WOMAN 

Uncomprehended and uncomprehending, 
The darling, but the despot, of our days — 
Smiling, she smites us — fondling us, she flays ; 

Still madly loving us, yet still contending. 

And proudest when her conquered heart is bending, 
And most unyielding when she most obeys — 
She is so fashioned that her face betrays 

The struggle ended, long before the ending. 

She's like a bubble borne along the air, 
Forever brightest just before it breaks — 
Or like a lute that's mutest ere it wakes 
In trembling ecstasies of love divine ; 
Woman is always just across the line 

Of her own purposes. Beware ! beware ! 

ON WABASH STREAM 

Good-night ! good-night ! On Wabash stream 

The rising stars blink, one by one ; 
Here where the purling waters gleam, 

The jet-black eyes of Delia shone; 
Here first was breathed the ardent sigh, 

As fast the trembling tear-drops came. 
And here, where darkling meadows lie, 

Our kindling passions burst to flame. 

Good-night ! good-night ! On Wabash stream 
The lighted waves no more I see ; 

Our vows were fickle as the beam 
That plays along the twilight sea. 



The Lute of Life 169 

Good-night ! The satire oft is said — 
Love lisps it with his roguish eyes ; 

To man deceived and maid misled, 

Good-night, — when will the world be wise? 

A MARBLE MONARCH 

Inanimate perfection ! lo, he stands 
A tongueless wonder, while the ages turn 
To ashes at his feet — a sinless growth 
Of soulless grace and silent majesty — 
Holding his ancient reign amidst the wreck 
Of empires and the crumbling skeletons 
Of ravished centuries. 

From halls of pomp, 
From purple thrones to populated tombs, 
A thousand carnal kings have passed away, 
And faded into legends quaint with age, 
Since he, this subtly chiseled sovereign. 
Was liberated from the shapeless stone 
Into the sunlight of the streaming years. 

But Time, the old Iconoclast, at length 
Will conquer, and the marble miracle, 
Battered and broken by the Titan's blows, 
Will topple from its antique base, and leave 
No vestige of its glory on the globe ; — 
While he whose cunning fingers fashioned it 
Shall live a factor in the world's design. 
An inspiration and a force to shape 
The destinies that gird the universe. 

A GLIMPSE 

Let no dull thing be said about her, 

Let every word that hints of her 

Be silken as the gossamer — 
The world would be a blank without her. 



I70 The Lute of Life 

All sweetest dreams are part of her, 
And every bird-song seems to be 
The fragment of a melody 

Blown from the golden heart of her. 

A light, elusive thing is she, 
Her flesh a blushing lily, soft 
As moonlight in a midnight croft, 

A warm sweet breath of spring is she. 

She ne'er can see how fair she is. 
Nor can she know the sweet desire 
That, like a swift-consuming fire, 

Pursues her everywhere she is. 



GENIUS 

Not those alone, who, lapped in eider-down, 

And shrined in templed cities, can lay claim 
To Nature's purple — to the poet's crown, 

And the proud prestige of the minstrel's fame ; 

Genius is even-handed! the rapt Dame 
Alike salutes the beggar and the king 

With her warm touches and her lips of flame, 
Bids potentates be mute and peasants sing, 
And o'er the lowliest roof outspreads her dewy 
wing. 

With her desires ye may dispute in vain. 

Ye pampered sons of pleasure, — ye will find 
Where least expected her supreme disdain, 

For she is fickle, and her ways are blind; 

Think not to woo her with a thoughtless mind, 
Nor win her with the witcheries of art, — 

Beneath the tatters of the trampled hind 
She 's quite as apt to lodge the envious dart 
As 'neath the royal robe that hides an empty heart. 



The Lute of Life 171 



RONDEAUX OF REMEMBRANCE 

In airy halls they dwell to-day, 
These friends of ours ! — On every spray 
Again the blooms of summer cling, 
Again the bonnie bluebirds sing, 
But they come not, for aye and aye. 

We hear their voices far away, 
Beyond the night, beyond the day, 
Beyond the sound of sorrowing, 
In airy halls. 

They lived— they loved— the Blue and Gray,— 
They fought as brave men fight, alway,— 

They fell — God knows their suffering! 

God knows we wept when Death's fell sting 
First set their stormy souls astray, 
In airy halls. 

They're now at rest ! No bugle's bray, 
No sound of flute, no virelay. 

No murmur of returning spring, 

Nor any wild-bird's caroling. 
Can wake them more — ah, well-a-day ! 

Beneath the loving light of May, 
Where we our tender tributes pay 
In tears of sweet remembering. 
They're now at rest. 

We sigh— we sing in strains that say 
To them Avhose brows are bound with bay, 
"God bless you!" while we wreathe and 'ring 
Their tombs with amaranth. A king 

For such a death might pray, but they 

They're now at rest. 



172 The Lute of Life 



THE GIRL 'AT KEP' A DIARY 

We hed a girl at our house who kep' a diary, 

Yit otherwise her health wuz good, ez fur ez I could 

see ; 
But instid o' gittin' better, her disease begun to take 
A seeryus turn 'at worried me, a-sleepin' er awake. 
The day she unpacked her trunk I might o' smelt a 

mouse, 
When I saw a big blank book er two a-layin' roun' the 

house ; 
But I never guessed the troubles 'at wuz marchin' down 

on me. 
When I happened to engage a girl 'at kep' a diary. 

She wuz plumper than a pigeon, an' ez purty ez a 

peach 
'At dangles on a upper limb, a little out o' reach ; 
Her hair wuz long an' fluffy ez it fluttered down her 

back. 
An' yaller ez a bunch o' straw a-hangin' frum the 

stack ; 
An' yit she wuz the oddest girl 'at ever undertook 
To rassel with a dish-rag, er dust a house, er cook ; 
In fact, I noticed frum the start she had a curious vein 
'At p'inted to the whirlin' uv a wheel within her brain. 

When fryin' meat, er churnin', er fabricatin' pies. 
She alius had a skeery-like expression in her eyes, 
Ez if she wuz a-lookin' thro' the garden gate to find 
A thought er two 'at seemed to be escapin' frum her 

mind; 
An' frequently I've seed her drap the skillet er the 

churn 
An' dash across the kitchen to that dratted book o' 

hern, 
An' set down by the winder-sill, an' write, by geminee ! 
Till mother got the supper an' invited her an' me. 



The Lute of Life 173 

When the weather got so pesky 'at we reckoned it a sin 
Fer anybody roun' the house to laff, er even grin, 
W'y, that air girl 'ud grab her book an' gallop out o' 

sight, 
An' bolt the bedroom door behind, an' write an' write 

an' write ; 
But what she writ we never knowed, an' yit it 'peared 

to me 
She wuz pennin' her impressions uv the whole blamed 

familee ; 
W'y, she'd sock them eyes upon us with an all-de- 

vourin' look, 
An' then she'd duck her yaller head an' scribble in her 

book. 

I tell ye, it wuz tryin' on the patience uv us all — 

In summer it wuz bad enough, but look out fer the fall ! 

Ef any frien's er neighbors happened in to hev a chat. 

The girl 'at kep a diary set mummer 'an a cat ; 

But jes' the minute they wuz gone she'd sidle frum her 

nook 
An' go a-bilin' up the stairs to git her blasted book, 
Ez ef she thought To-morrer might be side-tracked on 

its way 
To meet the facts expected on the up-train uv To-day. 

Ef ever a contention riz a-twixt 'at girl an' me, 
Regardin' dates, fer instance, er some anniversaree — 
Some little, triflin', onery thing 'at ought a-bin fergot, 
An' wuzn't wuth the breath we spent upon it, like ez 

not — 
I say, jes' when the argymints wuz comin' all my way, 
An' I wuz puttin' clinchers in, expectin' 'em to stay, 
She'd pull that book upon me with a satisfyin' grin. 
An' prove her p'ints, ezactly, ez I flattened an' give in. 

The longer 'at she stayed with us, the sicklier we grew ; 
She had us wher' she wanted us, an' kep' us in review. 
Ye see, she got the drap on us afore we wuz aware 



174 The Lute of Life 

'At all the fam'ly weaknesses wuz bein' pickled there. 
The mother tuck to droopin', an' Isabel! begun 
To wobble like a chicken 'at wuz chillin' in the sun, 
An' ever livin' thing around wuz gittin' thin an' pore, 
Frum the redbird in the winder to the ol' cat on the 
floor. 

She stayed with us about six months, an' when she went 

away 
An' tuck her books, I kind o' felt 'at on the Jedgment 

Day 
She'd be a-standin' at the Bar a-watchin' out fer me, 
An' instigatin' Peter to inspec' my pedigree; 
She understan's me thro' and thro' — knows all my 

hooks and crooks, 
A-cause she's got 'em written in 'er everlastin' books ; 
An' when I think o' Heaven, little mercy kin I see 
Ef I hev got to face the girl 'at kep' a diary. 



BITTER-SWEET 

She puzzles me ; her beauty is my bane ; 
Her speech belies the tempting tenderness 
That so ensnares, enslaves ; no sorceress 
Her witcheries may rival, if she deign 
To ply her potencies. 

Pleasure and pain 
. Are ministrant to her ; her eyes' caress 
Denies the cruelty her lips express, 
As rainbows seem repentant of the rain. 

The faultless beauty of her form and face, 
The dewy lustre of her darkling eye. 
Bewilder and perplex me, when I know 
That in her heart there is not any place 

Where Love may find a lodgment, even tho' 
Prone at her feet he piteously cry. 



The Lute of Life 175 

"GAUN HAME" 

"Fareweel !" she said, and she waved her hand 
From the stately ship, as it left the land 
For a far-off shore. 

"Fareweel !" said she, 
"I am gaun awa' to my ain countree, 
Where the gowans grow, and my laddie lies 
Cauld in his grave, where the Ochils rise, — 
To the land o' the leal, where my mither dear 
Has slumbered for mony a lang, lang year. 
Ghaist-like, I 've wandered the warld sae wide, 
A wae-worn lassie — an unlo'ed bride, — 
An' now, as the simmer grows sad and sere, 
An' my days draw doun to the last dim year, 
I am driftin' awa' frae a frien'less shore, 
To the hame o' the happy, ance more, ance more." 

The ship went down in the roaring sea. 
But the lady — she reached her "ain countree." 



IN TEMPE VALE 

In Tempe_ vale the sun shines fair. 

O'er crystal streams forever flowing, — 
On Tempe's rainbow-girdled air 

The velvet-breasted flowers are blowing. 
And up the valley, everywhere, 

The golden orange groves are glowing :- 
And violets uplift their eyes. 
Bewildered, to the stooping skies, 
Dreaming all day of Paradise ; 

And bluebells from the tufted sod. 
When darkness down Olympus dies. 

Outstretch their pearly palms to God, 
And pour their fragrant sacrifice. 
And all the world is in a trance 
Along Peneus' blue expanse. 

In Tempe vale. 



176 The Lute of Life 

In Tempe vale no sound of wars 
Goes ever to the mild-eyed stars ; 
No lily's breast is tinged with blood, 

No dreamer from his rest is driven, 
But ever from the drowsy wood 

There floateth to the jeweled heaven 
Eternal lullabies, like those 
That murmur in the crimson rose; 
Or like the symphonies that break 
From out some lone enchanted lake; 
Or like the rhapsodies that quiver 
By night along some sacred river, — 
Ah, only holiest things of earth 
Spring into beauty and to birth 

In Tempe vale. 

In Temple vale no bough is stirred, 

No winds are in the conscious tree; 
The only melodies there heard — 
Except the trill of some wild bird. 
Or tumult of the tippling bee — 
Are those dim strains of minstrelsy 
That tingle to the twilight stars 
From laughing lutes and low guitars 
On many a Grecian lover's knee ; 
And dark-eyed maids, with lips of wine 
And limbs of snow, their tresses twine 
By fountains flashing from the hills, 
And all the golden ether spills 
A summer splendor round the vine, 
In Tempe vale. 

In Tempe vale, in Tempe's bowers, 
The soul, intoxicate with bliss. 

Goes reeling through a world of flowers 
That hath no counterpart in this ; 

And far beneath the lote-tree's shade, 

Where glow-worms glimmer in the grass, 

Is heard the lonely serenade 



The Lute of Life 177 



Of some heart-broken nightingale; 

And dew-drops, like a sea of glass, 
Their love-lights up the valley trail 

Until the night-tide shadows' pass 
And daylight dawns o'er Tempe vale, 
O'er Tempe vale. 

In Tempe vale they weave the dance 
Along its lone, star-lighted river. 

By those wild grottoes of romance 
O'er which the mellow citrons quiver. 
And laughing love lives on forever! 

Ah, nightly to the cithern's sigh 

The Muses, from their haunts on high, 
Come tripping hither, every one, — 
And Pan, and young Endymion, 

And Dian, with her dapper crew, 
The piping shepherd-lads, and all 
The Dryads o'er the mountain wall, 

Come thronging to the revel, too. 

In Tempe vale. 

To Tempe vale, a long good-night! 

The glamour of my idle dream 
Is overpast. My waking sight, 

Alas! is blinded to the gleam 
And beauty of that valley bright. 
Its blissful bowers no more I see, 

Its peaceful paths have passed from view, 
Yet down to the yEgean Sea 

Still fall its winding waters blue, 
Still sings the bird and hums the bee 

In every nook the dreamer knew. 
No summer-poet's fickle thought 
On Fancy's pinions ever sought 
A spot with sweeter raptures fraught. 
Than Tempe vale. 



178 The Lute of Life 



TO RILEY 

I borrow half my zeal from you, 

My brother — you who soar and sing, 
Like some impatient skylark, through 

The welkin with unwearied wing; 
With eager ear I turn to hear 
Your song so dewy-sweet, so clear, 
So silver-silken, like a skein 

Of passion tangled in a tune, 
Or like the tinkle of the rain 

Upon the lily-lands of June, 
Or like the dreamy hum of bees, 
Faint-floating from acacia trees. 

Thro' all the drowsy afternoon ; 

Or like the low and limpid rune 
Of lotus-scented streams that creep 
Among the hooded hills of sleep. 

Forever 'neath the falling moon. 

Few singers since the world began, 

My comrade, e'er blew such a tone 
Of joyance from the Pipe of Pan 

As your warm lips have lately blown; 

No grief unknown, no old-worn moan, 
Finds voice in you ; your songs are new 
As April lilacs, dashed with dew ; 
Your themes are common, but your thought 
Gleams like a frightened fire-fly caught 

In tangles of a trellised vine. 
Or like a flashing jewel brought 

To light from some deserted mine ; 

Your heart 's a chalice, brimmed with wine 
Distilled from many a field and wood ; 
No kinder draught the gods have brewed 

Than this you pour, O bard benign! 

Strange spirit, wrought of shade and shine, 
You meet and master every mood. 



The Lute of Life 179 



A PAUSE AT THE PORTAI, 

I 

I reck not how the night may go — 
The rains may fall, the winds may blow, 

And vapors curdle as they fly ; 
My friends are gone, my fires are low. 

My sands are run, and I must die. 

I reck not of the roar and din 
Without, for all is peace within, — 
My soul has weathered wave and blast, 
And reached the open seas at last. 

II 

I turn these volumes inside out, 

And cram the flames with scrolls of doubt 

That I and other fools have penned ; 
I stir the ashes with a shout. 

And make a mockery of the end. 

No sophist's wit, no bigot's schism. 
Can bridge for me the bleak abysm 
That edges on the ebon gates 
Where Death, the sombre warder, waits. 

Ill 

I reck not how the hours go by — 
The earth reels from me, and my eye 

Is blinded with the winds that blow — 
Hark ! hark ! the beck'ning bugles cry 

Adown the dark, and I must go. 

Poor, bruis'd old world, and nigh worn out 
With petty chiselings of doubt, 
Good-by ! thy lampless years are done — 
Death breaks the seals — I see the sun ! 



i8o The Lute of Life 



A VISION 

And in my dream of beauty I beheld 

A being rapt and radiant as a star, 
Beneath whose kindHng Hght my spirit swelled 

To melody — and, streaming from afar, 

I saw the specters of the dawn unbar 
The gates of morning ; and on every gale 

That blew around Aurora's bannered car, 
I saw the Summer's censer-swingers trail 
Their odorous incense over hill and dale. 

And on my sight uprose a golden mist, 

Peopled with many a floating form and fair, — 

A Paradise of wandering souls, I wist, 
Chained to the shifting Eden of the air 
In snowy cavalcades of sweet despair; 

And some had harps and sang, and some had flowers, 
And others crowns, — and all were debonair; 

And everywhere were grottoes, glades, and bowers, 

And purling fountains, vistas, shrines, and towers. 



AT UNCLE REUBEN RAGAN'S 

At Uncle Reuben Ragan's ! — why, the present is forgot 
At the very faintest mention of the old enchanted spot ; 
And swifter than a swallow skimming down the dewy 

corn, 
My memory goes laughing back to boyhood's mellow 

morn, — 
And again I feel the breezes of the beechwoods on 

my cheek, 
As I pass with bow and arrow by the spring-house 

and the creek. 
And merrily wend onward to the Mecca of my joys. 
To spend a day in Paradise, with Uncle Reuben's boys. 

At Uncle Reuben Ragan's everything was fair and 

sweet. 



The Lute of Life i8i 

From the blue sky bending over, to the blue grass at 

our feet, — 
From the lisp and trill and twitter of the catbird and 

the lark. 
To the whippoorvvill that whistled from the dingle 

thro' the dark ; 
The days were full of riot, and the nights were full 

of rest 
As balmy as the moonlight on the squirrel's breezy 

nest : — 
As I plod the dim past over and recount its keenest 

joys. 
My barefoot fancy wanders o& with Uncle Reuben's 

boys. 

I can hear the walnuts dropping in the pasture, as of 
old, 

I can see the russets rounding into solid globes of 
gold ; 

I can see the bearded chestnuts clinging to the brown- 
ing boughs. 

In the corner of the orchard, just beyond the saddle- 
house ; 

I can hear the cider gushing from the mill, just over 
there, 

On the slope, across the hollow, in the cool October 
air: — 

O, I live the old life over, in my fancy, as my mind 

Re-pictures and re-peoples every scene it left behind. 

The little stream that toddled down the yard, and 
slipped away 

Thro' the pasture, still is tinkling in my memory to- 
day, 

And the barn that stood beyond it seems to beckon to 
me still, 

With its ever-greedy rat-traps, and its old red fanning- 
mill; 



1 82 The Lute of Life 



And the plum-patch in the garden, and the tall mul- 
berry tree 

That grew beside the milk-house, are a-calling back 
to me, — 

And again the maple sugar is a-trickling off my tongue 

Into streams of sweeter music than my lips have ever 
sung. 

Count my fingers three times over, and they scarce 

make up the years 
That have vanished, like a vision, in the torrent of 

my tears, 
Since the happy days of boyhood, ere the green earth 

claimed its own. 
And Uncle sank to slumber in the shadow of the 

stone : — 
Gone the many forms and faces — but a scattered few 

remain 
To meet us and to greet us, at the old homestead 

again ; 
And I — well, here I'm sitting 'neath my pines in 

IllJnois, 
And drinking cider — in my dreams — with Uncle 

Reuben's boys. 



AN OUTLOOK 

[Read at the laying of the corner-stone of the public 
school building in EfHingham, III., May 12, 18^4.] 

Standing here in the light of the May, 

What see we in the coming years ? 
A clamorous army in grim array 

Moving with banners and brands and spears — 
Thundering hither with bloodshot eyes. 

With red flags flying, and menacing breath 
Hissing defiance where liberty lies 

Bleeding and blind on the field of death? 



The Lute of Life 183 



What can the prophet of freedom see, 

Gazing afar on the days to come? 
Our country down on her crippled knee, 

Begging for mercy with white lips dumb — 
Pleading for life at a tyrant's throne. 

Her spirit broken, her pride undone, 
With nothing left she can call her own 

In the land of Lincoln and Washington? 

Heaven forbid it, O gray-haired seer ! 

Bear us a message, but let it be 
So fraught with promise, so full of cheer, 

That the deaf may hear and the blind may see; 
Tell us that all of our time's unrest 

Is only a vague, disquieting sense 
Of a passing fear in the people's breast 

That cometh we know not why nor whence. 

But tell us the truth, O prophet gray! 

Read us the tidings of God's intents, 
That we in our weakness may see our way 

Under the shadow of vast events ; 
Mark how the finger of destiny swings, 

O prophet, and whisper a word to our souls. 
That we may take counsel and do the things 

That He shall approve as the age unrolls. 

Around and about us the days grow dim 

With strange forebodings that threaten ill, 
And yet if we anchor our trust in Him 

Will He not keep and protect us still? 
Are we not the pliable instruments 

Of some high purpose not understood. 
By which a beneficent providence 

Is bringing about an inscrutable good ? 

Aye, thus believing, we bid you build, 

O master workman, above this stone 
The prayers of a people whose hearts are filled 



1 84 The Lute of Life 

And thrilled with the prompting's of love, alone; 
Build it, O Master, to faith and hope, 

To knowledge, to truth, and to charity, 
And fashion it fair with as broad a scope 

As the needs of a brotherly love may be. 

Build it to beauty and liberty, too, 

And ere it is done and your scaffolds drop, 
O worthy Master, I counsel you 

To leave a place for the flag on top — 
And when it is finished, above the door 

Inscribe these letters in grooves of stone: 
"Come hither, O children, both rich and poor, 

My wealth is abundant and all your own." 

THE SPIRIT OF POETRY 

She steers the stars through Heaven's azure deep ; 

She lifts the leaden eyelids of the morn ; 

On distant hills she winds the hunter's horn. 
And wakes the lonely shepherd from his sleep; 
She scales the dizzy ledge where torrents leap, 

And hangs the bloom upon the bristling thorn ; 

She sits for hours in solitudes forlorn, 
With downcast eyes, where hapless lovers weep. 
When Spring comes up the vale in Winter's trace, 
She plucks the blossom from the bud's embrace ; 

She binds the golden girdle round the bee. 

And lends the lily's lustre to the pea ; 
She curves the swallow's wing, and guides its flight. 
And tips the dewy meads with twinkling light. 

She rides, she revels on the rushing storm. 
She suns her pinions on the rainbow's rim — 
She laves in mountam pools her snowy limb. 

As sweetly chaste as Dian and as warm ; 

In summer fields she bares her blushing arm, 
And sings among the reapers. By the dim 
Light of autumnal moons, her tresses swim 



The Lute of Life 185 



On gales Lethean, with assuasive charm. 
Into the chamber of the alchemist 

She peers, or, through some half-closed lattice, sees 
Her lover by the wanton night-wind kissed. 

Anon, she walks the dim Hesperides, 
Or, mingling with the spirits of the mist, 

Dances at will along the darkling seas. 



A TOAST TO THE PAST 

[Read at the reunion of the Class of '"jz, University 
of Illinois, May 2y, i8p2.] 

Into a beautiful world we went, 

Twenty-four years ago — 
A world of promise and rare content. 

Twenty-four years ago ; 
Over its meadows the west-wnnd blew 
Melodies faint as a ring-dove's coo. 
And everything had a golden hue, 

Twenty-four years ago. 

We took no thought of the flight of time, 

Twenty-four years ago, — 
We stepped to the tune of a tinkling rhyme. 

Twenty- four years ago ; 
Over the rim of the morning rose 
Glimmering dreams of a high repose, 
Out on the hills where the laurel grows, 

Twenty-four years ago. 

Lips were loving, and summers were sweet, 

Twenty-four years ago, — 
The days were short and the nights were fleet. 

Twenty-four years ago ; 
Beautiful, innocent hands were they 
That crept up into our own, and lay 
There in a most confiding way. 

Twenty-four years ago. 



1 86 The Lute of Life 



Friends were many and foes were few, 

Twenty-four years ago, — 
Hands were loyal and hearts were true, 

Twenty-four years ago ; 
Ever among us our Masters went, 
Stooped with the weight of a large intent, 
Tall-browed tutors and eloquent, 

Twenty-four years ago. 

Deep in the pillows of boyhood grew, 

Twenty-four years ago, 
Dreams as bright as a May-dawn's dew, 

Twenty-four years ago ; 
Dreams of glory that far outshone 
Anything yet that the world had known, 
Crowns that fitted our brows alone, 

Twenty-four years ago. 

Out of that beautiful world we came. 

Twenty long years ago. 
With a steady step and a lofty aim, 

Twenty long years ago ; 
And never again did we see the flowers. 
Nor hear in the dim Pierian bowers 
The whispers of hope in that world of ours, 

Twenty long years ago. 

We find life now, as we found it first, 

Twenty long years ago. 
When, birdlike, out of the nest we burst. 

Twenty long years ago ; 
Always a worm in the heart of the fruit, 
A fly in the flask — a flaw in the flute, — 
Some discord never discerned in the lute 

Twenty long years ago. 

The way is weary that leads us o'er 

Twenty long years ago, 
To the dear old summers that come no more, 



The Lute of Life 187 



Twenty long years ago; 
But the far-off future beckons and beams, 
And often we see in glimmers and gleams 
The one true life of our boyish dreams, 

Twenty long years ago. 



MY GOOD RIGHT HAND 

(A la Riley) 

A subjec' fer a poem ! Well, I've got her, don't fergit ; 
Howsomever, hit's a secret till a verse er two is writ. 
But my pencil keeps a-prancin' down the paper like 

ez if, 
In spite of all my cunnin', it hed kind o' got a whiff 
Uv the inspiration bilin' up agin my collar-band 
Ez I'm stakin' off a triboot to 
My 

Good 

Right 

Hand. 

Ther' never wuz a feller hed a lover ha'f ez sweet 
Ez them little bones an' grissels in their kiverin' o' 

meat, 
Thet fer fifty year an' better hev been danglin' like a 

charm, 
Down yander at the bizness termination of my arm — 
An' my fingers sort o' trimble, fer they seem to under- 
stand 
Thet they're scribble-un the praises uv 
My 

Good 

Right 

Hand. 

I love it, fer it labors oncomplainin' ever' day. 
Never grumblin', never growlin', never dunnin' me fer 
pay; 



The Lute of Life 



Alius ready, alius willin', fer to he'p me in a pinch, 
An' a-workin' like the dickens wher' the other fellers 

flinch ; 
So ye see it makes me giggle jes' a thinkin' how I've 

planned 
An' nearly writ a poem to 
My 

Good 

Right 

Hand. 

Some time when ye're in Springfield, an' santerin' 

around 
The monument o' Lincoln, an' the other haller'd 

ground, 
Jes' drop into the State-house, wher' they keep the 

flags, an' see 
The one I ust to foller in the year o' 'Sixty-three, 
An' see the old staff splintered till it can't no longer 

stand. 
An' rickolect 'twuz riddled in 
My 

Good 

Right 

Hand. 

I know a little woman 'at's a-gittin' middlin' gray. 
Whose testimony I kin add to thet o' mine, an' say 
Thet no telegrafic batt'ry ever give her sich a shock 
O' pleasure ez she hed one night, 'bout nine er ten 

o'clock, 
When the war wuz fit an' finished an' peace wuz in 

the land. 
An' she felt ag'in the graspin' uv 
My 

Good 

Right 

Hand. 



The Lute of Life 189 

O my good right hand ! when the years hev hustled by, 
An' we're shoveled off together in the shadders, you 

an' I, 
We'll stick to one another still, jes' like a pair o' twins, 
The only drawback bein' thet you suffer fer my sins — 
An' yit, somehow, I fancy when before the Throne I 

stand, 
My heart '11 feel the pressure uv 
My 

Good 

Right 

Hand. 



THE LADY OF MY DREAM 

Just for a dream's sake would I have her so, 
Just for a dream's span, lying half-reclined 
Against the dusk, her plenteous hair entwined 

With milk-white pearls and lilies all aglow; 

Just for a dream's sake, only, would I know 
The full perfection languidly outlined 
Beneath the wreathing raiments that enwind 

Her sumptuous beauty from all winds that blow. 

She's but the chiseled image of my dream, 
The breathing marble from the model drawn 
Upon my vision in the night's deep hush. 
When Beauty's self, clad in the moon's thin beam. 
Went forth to cull the first rose of the dawn 
Amidst her garden grasses, warm and lush. 



THERE IS NO REST 

"There is no death," the poet sings, 
As lofty dreams inspire his breast,- 

O spirit of the tuneful strings, 
I answer, — neither is there rest! 



190 The Lute of Life 



There is no rest! the mills of change 
Grind on, — the gods are at the wheels ! 

The same fierce impulse, swift and strange, 
We feel, that every planet feels. 

There is no rest! not even sleep 

Is shorn of its mobility, — 
The red floods thro' the body sweep 

Forever, like a tided sea. 

There is no rest ! the granite grinds 
To dust within its marble glooms ; 

Decay's pale worm incessant winds 

Its way thro' Fame's emblazoned tombs. 

There is no rest! e'en Love hath wings 

That wearilessly fan the air 
In his leal-hearted wanderings, 

So fetterless, so free from care. 

There is no rest! the feet of Pain 

Are shod with motion, — Pleasure's eyes 

Pale faster than the sun-kissed rain 
Swung arching in the mid-May skies. 

There is no rest! Religion shakes 
Her stainless robes, and skyward lifts 

Her tremulous white palms, and takes 
Faith's priceless and eternal gifts. 

There is no rest ! the long gray caves 
Of Death are rife with force and heat. 

Nor Fancy pauses till she paves 

The floors of Heaven with flying feet. 

There is no rest! no sure repose 
For souls above nor souls below, — 

Life's tide forever ebbs and flows, 
And man must either come or go. 



The Lute of Life 191 



And so, thro' all the universe 

A rhythmic motion, faint-expressed, 

Runs onward like an epic-verse, 
Voluminous — there is no rest! 

LAST HOURS OF CHATTERTON 

My dreams are almost over. 

My days of love are done. 
Dark are the clouds that cover 

The cold cheek of the sun ; 
Tho' still the life-light flashes 

Within my tired eyes, 
My hopes— they are but ashes ! 

My heart— see where it lies ! 

Delight no longer wooes me, 

And all desire is vain ; 
Disaster still pursues me 

Behind the hounds of pain ; 
My blood that once went leaping 

In riotous unrest, 
Now, chilled with care, is creeping 

And curdling in my breast. 

Regret itself has perished. 

And not one passion stirs 
The ruddy springs that nourished 

The loves of other years ; 
Dead, too, is all endeavor. 

And little 'tis I care 
How soon the Sisters sever 

The cords that hold me here. 

No man to me is neighbor, 

I, neighbor unto none — 
Each tongue is like a sabre 

Adrip with murder done ; 



192 The Lute of Life 

The artful robs the artless, 
The knave, the fool — what then? 

The grave is not more heartless 
Than are the ways of men. 

ANOTHER VIEW 

'Twere pleasant, that in flowery June, 
When birds send up a cheerful tune. 

And groves a joyous sound, 
The sexton's hand, my grave to make, 
The rich green mountain turf should break. 

— Bryant's "June;." 

Not so with me ! I dare not think 

Of death when lovely June 
Lies on the lilac and the pink, 
And down the river's dewy brink 

The wild-birds pipe in tune ; 
Nay ! nay ! I could not will to die, 
What time the flower-clad earth draws nigh 

The summer's golden noon, — 
'Twere double death to pass away 
When Nature holds her holiday. 

When apple-boughs are warm with bloom, 

And down the orchard's rows 
The clover pours its faint perfume, 
'Twere sacrilege to wish the tomb 

Might o'er one's ashes close ; 
With sun and heat life grows intense, 
And Spirit sips the cups of Sense, 

Forgetful of its woes ; 
While the red breakers of the blood 
Roll onward in a fervent flood. 

Dear Poet! if I've read aright. 

Death favored thy desire 
And felled thee when the flowers were bright 



The Lute of Life 193 

On all the fields of June, and white 

The blossoms on the briar ; 
When from the turf and from the tree 
The birds sent up their melody 

Like some impassioned choir; 
And yet, it seems, from summer's glow 
A bard should be the last to go. 

Give me to die when snow and sleet 

Lie thick upon the flowers, — 
When night-winds at the gables beat, 
And up the city's frozen street 

The friendless outcast cowers ; 
Hide me away from scenes like these, 
Omnipotence ! if so it please 

To exercise Thy powers; — 
Spare not! but let December rave, 
And shower his lances on my grave. 

Life is least worth when skies are dull, 

And on the icy air 
No singing bird comes forth to lull 
The troubled heart, — no beautiful 

Wild flower is anywhere ; 
Less grief it were to slip the chains 
Of living, and escape its pains. 

When all is bleak and bare ; — 
And so from earth I fain would fly 
When winter hurtles through the sky. 



SEVERED FRIENDSHIP 

Shall we never meet again? 

Is it fated that we twain 

Shall know no more the clasping 
Of each other's arms — the grasping 

Of each other's hands, and tingling 

Of the old-time's intermingling? 

13 



194 The Lute of Life 



Is it written — is it known, 

In the doom-book at the Throne, 

That you and I, forever, 

Shall never, never, never, 
Be united — ^be twin-hearted. 
As in days long since departed? 

May we never backward creep 
Thro' the shadows vague and deep, 
To the melancholy borders 
Of our strifes and our disorders, 
And restore the fetters golden 
Of the happy days and olden? 

Is it fated that we twain 

Must forevermore remain 
Asunder, but still yearning 
For a love that's unreturning — 

For a friendship rashly riven. 

In the sight of Earth and Heaven? 



A DREAM ABOUT SONNETS 

O silver-throated throng ! Hither ye fly, 
Down-singing on your happy pilgrimage 
From Petrarch's groves and Dante's golden cage, 

Far-hidden in the vales of Tuscany ! 

Beloved of every bard, ye charmed the eye 
Of Spenser's muse, and even did engage 
The soul of Shakespeare, on whose ample page 

Ye perched and piped in strains that never die. 

To you did Milton lend a listening ear. 
Ye soothed old Cowper in his latter days, 

And mellowed the melodious atmosphere 

'Round Rydal Mount, and, in the lone retreats 

Where bleeding Genius dropped his budding bays. 
Poured out your crushed hearts at the bed of Keats. 



The Lute of Life 195 

A NATIONAL BIRTHDAY BALLAD 

(read at WATSON, ILI,., JUI<Y 4, 1882) 

Roll out the cannon, boys, run up the flag, 
Scream, ye bold eagles, on mountain and crag. 
Ye mariners shout in your ships on the sea, 
Columbia has conquered, the Nation is free! 
There is light in the cloud, there is peace on the shore, 
And the death-dealing musket hangs dumb o'er the 

door; 
The people that groaned under burdens that grew, 
The tyrant that tortured, the savage that slew. 
The prince and the peasant, who wrangled of old. 
The good and the evil, the weak and the bold, — 
All, all have gone down thro' the portals of fate, 
And liberty's lions keep watch at the gate. 

O children ! the blood of your forefathers poured 
In floods from the track of the foreigners' sword. 
And their death-shrieks of valor still echo and ring 
With a shout for their country, a curse for the king ; 
They died, and their dust blossoms up from the mold, 
And their guerdons of glory gleam brighter than gold ; 
Like the odor of flowers when the summer is gone, 
The bloom falls away, but the fragrance lives on ; 
O children ! for them lift your voices on high 
With pseans of praise on each Fourth of July, — 
And listen ! as ye gather strength and grow great, 
Keep the lions of liberty close to the gate. 

Ye fathers, who fell upon Lexington green, 
Ye mothers, whose equals the world has not seen. 
We hail you, salute you, with speech and with song. 
As the ages of progress glide swiftly along; 
From shadowy hillside and populous plain 
We swell the bold anthems of freedom again. 
And the voice of this people forever shall ring, 
"Up, up, with the Union, and down with the king!" 
From Plymouth's bald rock to the bright golden strand 



196 The Lute of Life 

The temples of truth and of justice shall stand, 
And rainbows of promise shall span every State, 
While the lions of liberty watch at the gate. 

Ye brothers, who stand like a stairway of stars, 
In the fortress of freedom, we 're proud of your scars ; 
The despot is down, and the bondman is free. 
And a new life is dawning o'er land and o'er sea ; 
Clasp hands round the flag, round its folds reunite. 
There 's love in the emblem, there 's hope in its might ; 
Shout aloud! for the night of oppression is past, 
And sunbursts of glory break out of the blast ; 
The owl of despair has deserted his crag. 
And the eagle of joy perches high on the flag, — 
Perches high, shrieks aloft, in his triumph elate, — 
And the lions of liberty watch at the gate. 

Wives, sisters, and sweethearts, to you it is given 
To cheer the torn ranks if the cohorts are riven ; 
Ye vanguards of mercy, white scouts from the skies, 
We dream in your lovelight, we drink to your eyes ; 
We praise you with wit and we pledge you with wine, 
And garlands of love round your temples we twine; 
The roar of the conflict is sweet to our ears 
When beauty looks on thro' an iris of tears, 
And the foe melts away like a mist in the strife 
When the warrior remembers his sweetheart or wife ; 
Then hail to you, joy to you, early and late. 
While liberty's lions keep watch at the gate. 

And thou, O Columbia! of nations last born. 
Bright planet of freedom that heralds the morn, 
Thy birth-hymn is heard in the songs of the spheres. 
Thy records are written with sabres and spears ; 
The stripes on thy standard are legends of pain. 
And its stars are the symbols of hope for the slain ; 
No more at the feet of foul empires you plead, 
At the beck of thy finger all kingdoms take heed, 
And the roar of thy mandates, on land and on sea. 



The Lute of Life 197 



Bears hope to the bondmen and strength to the free ; — 
Then onward, press onward, O proud Ship of State, 
While liberty's lions keep watch at the gate! 



A VAGARY IN VERSE 

The life that is, and the life that was, and the life that 

is to be. 
One is a river, and one is a lake, and one is a bound- 
less sea ; 
And over all is a laughing sky ; and ever our hearts 

respond 
To the sweet, invisible loves that lie in the sparkling 
blue beyond ; 
And to and fro the wild winds blow in the starshine 

and the sun, 
And the thoughts of to-day and yesterday are merely 
the thoughts of one. 
The words we spake, and the words we speak, and 

those we yet shall say. 
Are linked together, in tricksy tether, like children 
at their play. 
The deeds we do, and the deeds we did, and those that 

wait undone, 
Are much the same in look and name, and trip together 
as one; 
The sins of to-day and yesterday and to-morrow's 

sins are such 
We smile to see the family resemble each other so 
much. 
And nothing under the sun is new ; and so the cycles 

pass 
Before the marveling mind of man like shadows over 
glass : — 
But under it all, and over it all, and the finest part 

thereof, 
Is the sweet immutable sovereign soul of love — 
love — love. 



198 The Lute of Life 

IN PEACEFUL DAYS 

[Read before a camp-iire of the Ransom Post, G. A.R., 
at Mason, III] 

Happy the day! but happier far the land, 

Unclouded by the battle's fiery breath ; 
Happy the day, when ancient foemen stand 

Around one camp-fire and one flag beneath ; 
When grasses spring in trenches of the slain, 
And pathless meadows glow with golden grain, 
And time has kissed away each crimson stain, 
And tender mem'ries drape the fields of death. 

Happy the day, when, under mild-eyed stars, 
The loit'ring maiden and the loyal swain 
No longer catch the clamorous peal of wars 

Upblown from harvest-lands of blood and pain ; 
Happy the day, when strife and discord cease. 
When from the war-clouds float the doves of peace, 
And every patriot from his door-step sees 
Serener joys around his cottage reign. 

Happy the day, when widows' cries are stilled. 

And sabers into pruning-hooks are made ; 
Happy the day, with autumn fruitage filled, 

When marts are tingling to the tramp of trade ; 
When shining plows write hymnals in the sod, 
And timely showers caress the crumbling clod, 
And franchised toilers carol as they plod 
Among the hills and thro' the sun-lit glade. 

Happy the day, when freemen's feet shall tread, 

With equal pace, the slipp'ry slopes of time ; 
Happy the day, when all mankind are led 

To brand with infamy the brows of crime ; 
When reeking Tyranny has burned his whips. 
And billows blossom with the sails of ships, 
And all the world, released from its eclipse. 
Rolls onward like a poet's mellow rhyme. 



The Lute of Life 199 

Happy the day, when sturdy axes ring 

Reluctant anthems from the mountain-pine — 
When hammers clash, and shining spindles sing 

The symphonies of industry divine ; 
When temples gleam, and marble cities rise. 
And glistening turrets fret the vaulted skies, 
And kings grow tremulous, and men grow wise, 
And love and valor round our altars twine. 

Happy the day, when stainless statesmen stand 

And trance the list'ning senates with their speech ; 
When purer laws enlace the laughing land, 

And monarchs tremble at the truths we teach ; 
Happy the day, when from the warrior's brow 
Love takes with tender hand the laurel-bough. 
And crowns her prince that plods behind the plow, 
And nations cling like brothers, each to each. 

TO WILLIAM VAIL 

Dear Bard of Summit! can it be 
The Shadow hath encompassed thee — 
That on thy singing lips descend 
The dews of death, my gentle friend? 

We bow to the divine behest 
That whatsoever is, is best, — 

Yet under all our patience lies 

A pain that we can not disguise. 

The frosts of time that fringed thy face 
Touched not the spirit's tender grace. 
And thro' each stress of storm and shine 
The chasteness of the child was thine. 

If e'er thou hadst a dream of fame 
Whose high fulfillment never came, 

What matters it? no heart should ache 

O'er bubbles that so lightly break. 



200 The Lute of Life 



If but the love of song endure 
When youth is gone, the gift is sure, — 
And thus, by that unfailing sign, 
Old friend, we know the gift was thine. 

Had I, to-day, the power to pierce 
Beyond the curtained universe, 
I fain would see the fadeless bough 
' That Love hath twined about thy brow. 

In vain my fancy's pinions beat 

The fortress-walls of thy retreat, 
And yet it soothes my soul to see 
And feel that all is well with thee. 

Hail and good-night ! but not good-by, — 
When we shall part, Old Time and I, 
Pray wander down some path and wait 
To press my warm palm at the gate. 



AT BAY 

Dagger, what lies beyond thy lethal tip? 
Darkness and solitude, or some divine. 
Saint-thronged and sun-crowned shore? O weapon 
mine, 

Speak to my spirit swiftly, for my grip 

Tightens upon thee, and my sin-scorched lip 
Quivers with agony, — my thoughts malign 
Leap wildly from their desecrated shrine, 

Like some mad steed beneath his master's whip. 

One moment more of life, O God, and then 
The voiceless vastitudes — the shifting hell 
Of night eternal, and unpillared space, — 
One moment, and my soul shall be as when 
It floated, formless, in the blind embrace 
Of Time's pre-vital mysteries. — Farewell! 



The Lute of Life 201 



THE LONG JOURNEY HOME 

He claimed that he came from Missouri. I smiled in 

the old man's face, 
And said, "Farther east, my brother, I think is youV 

native place." 
At which he looked up and retorted in terms both 

pointed and plain, 
"Well, yes, as a matter of fact, my parents moved 

there from Maine." 
"And where was your grandfather from, if that I be 

free to inquire?" 
"From England, old England," said he.— "And where 

was the home of his sire?" 
"He came into Britain through France, long since, 

from a country afar. 
From a city whose name I remember of hearing was 

Kandahar — 
Came with his father, who journeyed from Egypt, 'tis 

said, when a child, 
Along with his great-grandsire from the Asian hills." 

I smiled, 
"And so you have traveled and traveled for hundreds 

of years," I said ; 
"You've crossed over continents, oceans, and gone 

where the sun has led, — 
And can you not find what you seek?" He wearily 

turned to the west, 
And answered, "No, never ! my brother,~there's only 

one Place of Rest." 



THE CRIME 

Here lived the slayer, and there the slain, 
With barely an acre of ground between ; 
'T was night ! they stood in the wind and rain. 
And quarrelled, — next morning a ghastly stain 
Of blood on the meadow-grass was seen. 



202 The Lute of Life 



And one was dead, and one had fled, 

And all night long the mourners wept; 
The widow wailed in the dusk by the dead, 
And the wife of the slayer shook with dread, 
And the north-wind over the chimney swept. 

And these were farmers, and these were friends,- 

Friends, I say, till that night in the fall ; 
Too proud was the one to make amends 
For a foolish wrong, and the bloody ends 
Of passion followed, with grief and gall. 

Then a gibbet loomed in the dusky sky. 

And a blue-eyed orphan pierced the night 
With desolate sobs, and a mother's cry 
Outrang the blast, as it whistled by 
In its wild, unbridled flight. 

They laid the slayer not far from the slain, 
In the village churchyard under the hill ; 
And the meadows of death were dearth of grain, 
And the winds blew over the unplowed plain, 
For the hands of the husbandmen were still. 



I passed by the crumbling huts to-day, 

And birds were out, and the land was green ; 
Two women, withered and bent and gray. 
Sat, each in the shade of her own doorway, 
And children played on the ground between. 



FOR AN ALBUM 

We shall meet, we shall greet, 
Where the bright lights quiver 

Over yonder, on the heights 
Of the interflowing river, — 

Over yonder where the moon 
With the shepherd-boy dallies. 



The Lute of Life 203 

And the goat-foot Pan 

Goes piping down the valleys, — 
We shall meet, we shall greet, 

Where the warm sky showers 
The pearls of the planets 

On the fountains and the flowers, — 
Where the summer lies asleep 

On the wings of the swallows. 
And the nightingale sings 

In the dream-haunted hollows ; 
We shall meet, over there, 

On the sunny hills seven, 
In the Rome of the soul, 

In the Italy of Heaven. 



A SEA-WEED 

A seaman's bride knelt low beside the sea, 
Her hands uplifted in dumb agony. 

The rack dravc in against the ragged coast, 
And on the downs the raging ocean tossed. 

"Give back," she cried, "O heaven, give back to 

me, 
One ship, of all the ships that sail the sea!" 

A hurrying sea-gull and a hungry shark 

Made answer, — and the dark grew doubly dark. 

That night a sailor pale with outstretched hand 
Knelt on the deck and prayed for grace to land. 

"Almighty God ! let me but clasp once more, 
Ere death, my waiting one, on yonder shore," 

He said, — and fell upon the shattered deck, 
A lifeless mass amidst a hopeless wreck. 



204 The Lute of Life 

The boiling waters murmured a reply, 

As the last bolt came rushing down the sky. 

And o'er the sunken ship the sea-gulls flew, 
And on the crags the night- winds blew and blew. 



THE PRINCE OF BOHEMIANS 

Goldsmith ! what other name in modern song 

Lies on the lips so lovingly and long 

As his, the lowly piper of Lissoy, 

Who left to man what time can ne'er destroy, — 

Whose genius lifted, in an age of hate, 

The muse of Britain from its low estate, 

And from the grime of London brought to view 

Such grace of song as England never knew. 

Of all unlucky bards, Goldsmith was first. 

Mothered by Want and by Misfortune nursed — 

A child of folly from the cradle cast 

Upon the world, to face its every blast ; 

Infirm of will, untutored to deceive, 

A heart made keen to pity and relieve — 

A self-forgetful nature, quick to know 

A wretch's need, and first to share his woe ; 

A gentle spirit, wayward as the wind, 

Fluting for bread, and studying mankind, — 

By choice a rover, free and easy still, 

No friends to fret him, and no purse to fill ; — 

At home in every land, on every sea, 

Where Mirth and Wine and Fellowship could be ; 

His soul behind no curtained casement stood, 

But loved the pulse and glow of brotherhood, 

And prince and pauper shared alike the strong 

Fraternal fervor of his deathless song. 

Amidst the gloom of Grub Street see him creep. 

Hungry, and hollow-eyed from want of sleep, 

Alone indulging a sublime despair 

Lest Death, in passing, may not find him there. 



The Lute of Life 205 



Crushed with the weight of follies overpast. 
In London's lap he throws himself at last, 
Bruised with distrust and battered with disdain, 
A soul who never gave the world a pain. 

GRUB STREET, LONDON, 1739 

O dingy street! where Genius lit, 
Half-clad, her torch — where Johnson's wit 
Plowed through the pretense of his time, — 
Where Goldsmith built the lofty rhyme, 
And Savage died, and Smollett writ. 

Where Garrick, born to charm the pit. 
First made the royal buskins fit, 
And trod the tragic stage sublime, — 
O dingy street ! 

A dreary street! no longer flit 
Starved authors in and out of it; 
They drudge no more in gloom and grime, 
In dens of death, in caves of criffie, 
To kinder fates they now submit, 
O dingy street ! 

THE PEOPLE OF THE PEN 

O the people of the pen. 

The people of the pen — 
The brightest of our women, 

And the bravest of our men ! 
On the picket-lines of progress 

They are keeping watch and ward, 
Where the reaper swings the sickle 

And the soldier wields the sword; 
Their snowy scrolls are fluttering. 

Like doves, around the globe — 
They 're folding all the lands of God 



2o6 The Lute of Life 



Within one starry robe; 
On all the bleak and sunless hills 

They build the beacon-fires, 
And set the danger-signals out 

On all the tallest spires ; 
The fiery-footed coursers 

Of the lightning they have caught, 
And made them message-bearers 

In the parliament of thought; 
They 're a mighty army moving. 

And they muster thousands ten, 
And pull the world behind them, — 

The people of the pen. 

O the people of the pen, 

The people of the pen ! 
Wherever human foot has trod 

Some strolling scribe has been; 
Ye '11 find them in the frigid North, 

Beyond the lone "J^^^^^tte," — 
In the desert lands of Siber, 

Where the cheerless exiles fret ; 
Ye '11 find them on the Congo, 

Ye '11 meet them on the Nile, 
Ye '11 hear them in the jungle 

Of the snake and crocodile ; 
They slumber with the Bedouin, 

They sip the sunny wine 
Upon the Guadalquiver 

And along the banks of Rhine ; 
The Argonauts of every clime, 

They wander far and free, 
They scale the wildest mountain 

And they sail the widest sea; 
The pilgrims of Bohemia, 

There 's naught escapes their ken, — 
The painters of the universe, 

The people of the pen. 
O the people of the pen, 



The Lute of Life 207 



The people of the pen ! 
They 're toiling in the palace. 

And the poor man's den ; 
They tell us of the glory 

Of the times long past, 
Of the splendors of antiquity 

Too marvelous to last; 
In the looms of their genius 

They are weaving, day and night, 
Ihe visions of the dreamers 

Into pages black and white ; 
Into golden blocks of wisdom 

They are chiseling their hearts, 
And we buy their very life-blood 

For a penny in the marts ; 
They are scholars ripe and ready. 

They are poets blithe and young, 
Whose happy fancies tinkle 

Into music on the tongue ; 
They carol like the mock-bird. 

They twitter like the wren, 
And the world is in the fingers 
Of the people of the pen. 



MURMURS OF MARCH 
(a silhouette) 

Patches of snow, like scattered flocks, that lie 
Along the damp hill's sunny southern side ; 
Gray glens, lone glades, and drowsy streams that 
glide. 

With sound as lulling as a seraph's sigh 

Beneath the craggy cliffs that stretch on high 
Iheir wreathen fingers, as a new-made bride 
Uplifts her jeweled hands with comely pride 

lo catch some friendly guest's admiring eye 



2o8 The Lute of Life 

Dank vagues of mold'ring leaves — the skeletons 
Of vanished splendor — into shadow shrink, 

Like disenchanted belles, beneath the glow 

Of blither beauty, born of brighter suns ; 
Ah, well-a-day ! reluctantly we think 

On last year's blight when this year's roses blow. 



THE COUNTRY BOY AT SCHOOL 

How kin a feller study a-tall, 

Er cipher a single bit, 
An' that little white ca'f shet up in a stall 

An' nobody carin' fer it? 
An' mother a-layin' sick in her bed, 

An' the hired-girl fergittin' 
To water ol' Bill in the stable-shed, 

Er feed my kitten. 

Now what's the use uv 'rithmetic 

Er spelHn', I 'd like ter know, 
When Banta can't git nothin' to pick 

A-scratchin' there in the snow? 
Some fellers 'at go to school don't keer 

Fer dogs an' things like I do, — 
Plague-gone ! I wish I 'uz away frum here, 

At home with Fido. 

"Jes' go to school ever' day you can, 

An' study yer best," says Paw, 
"An' 'fore yuh know it yuh '11 be a man, 

An' ready fer readin' law" : — 
Now think o' that ! an' the bresh-piles thick 

Ez turnip-tops in the holler, 
An' rabbits skippin' along the crick, 

An' I can't foller. 

Eddication is good enough, 
I reckon, but Jemi-nee! 



The Lute of Life 209 



A-gittin' the thing is purty tough 
Fer a boy 'ats built like me; — 

I 'd ruther hev that ol' shotgun 
O' Jim's, with its wooden rammer, 

Than the biggest prize 't-wuz ever won 
Studyin' grammer. 

When re-cess comes I 'm go'n' to say 

Jes' nothin' a-tall, an' yit 
I '11 straddle that fence an' scoot away 

Ez fast ez I kin git ; 
So fare-ye-well ol' jografee, 

An' fare-ye-well ol' spellin' ; — 
What 's to become uv a boy like me, 

There ain't no tellin'. 

(Bxit) 

ILLINOIS 

I sing not of the summer lands 
That lie beyond the rolling seas — 
Nor of the famed Hesperides, 

Nor any tropic isles or strands. 

I sing a land of peace and light. 
Of labor, love, and liberty — 
A land wherein the prophets see 

The dawn of progress infinite. 

No dreaming poet ever drew 
Upon the tablet of his thought 
A land with fairer promise fraught, 

Than this that opens on my view. 

The maiden empire of the West, 

Gold-sheened, gold-sandaled, and gold- 
crowned. 
Her brows with yellow harvests bound, 
Her ample bosom blossom-drest. 
14 



2IO The Lute of Life 



Here rhythmic rivers flash and flow- 
Thro' meadows measureless, and here, 
On banks of roses, cities rear 

Their temples in the sunset's glow. 

Here birds of every tongue and tinge 
Fly up and down the laughing lands. 
From Michigan's surf-whitened sands 

To where Ohio's floods infringe. 

The skies of Italy are ours, 

And ours the Lydian airs that blow 
So lightly, lullingly, and low, 

At night-tide, o'er the sleeping flowers. 

No ghostly ruins fret the wind, 

No shattered shrines, no toppling towers, 
But, ah ! this peaceful realm embowers 

The wealth of Ormus and of Ind. 

Nor is the soul of romance flown, 
For here the poet's eye can trace 
The vestige of a vanished race 

In field and forest, stream and stone. 

And here a grander Rome will rise, 
A Rome without a slave or king, 
Round which a nobler race will spring, 

With patriotic souls and wise; — 

A free-born people, proud and great. 
With heart and hand to do and dare, — 
With strength to fashion firm and fair 

The fabric of the growing State. 

And Greece, beneath these western skies. 
Will leap to life again, and breathe 
Her spirit into stone, and wreathe 

The land with deathless melodies. 



The Lute of Life 211 



I trow no fancy can forecast 
The fame, the splendor, yet to be 
Unscrolled before the world, when we 

Are drawn into the dreamless past. 



THE POET 

The Poet's portion of the earth 

Outrings the farthest rim 
That girds the universe; by birth 

The world belongs to him; 
His home is neither here nor there, 

He scorns all bands and bars, 
And round his fancy's feet can wear 

The warm dust of the stars. 

He hedges all the lanes of life 

With love, where'er he goes; 
He stills with song the breath of strife 

And brings the heart repose; 
To him is nothing commonplace, — 

The meekest flowers that nod 
Beside the way wear on their face 

The finger-prints of God. 

To him is neither rich nor poor, — 

With equal zest he sings 
Beside the cotter's humble door 

And in the hall of kings; 
To him all nature is a scroll 

Of music. — Earth and sky 
Are but the keys from which his soul 

Strikes endless harmony. 

When all the world is dark with doubt. 
And clouds conceal the day — 

When all the lamps of hope are out, 
Some poet leads the way; — 



212 The Lute of Life 



Some poet, like a prophet old, 
With love divine possessed, 

Upleads us to the gates of gold 
And whispers us to rest. 



IN SUMMER WOODS 

How sweet amidst the melancholy hills 

To lie, a lazy dreamer, in the lap 

Of flush midsummer, drowsy with the lull 

Of lapping waters and light winds that pipe 

In murmurous monotones along the dim, 

Sun-litten arcades of the spectral woods, — 

To hear, remotely, in the lonesome lands, 

The drony resonance of dreamy bells, 

Where, 'mid cool shadows, lurk the browsing 

herds. 
In dimpled hollows, soft with summer sward — 
To list the sullen rasps of insect wings, 
And, in a silken indolence of soul, 
To note the bluster of the tippling bee. 
Home-reeling from the pillaged palaces 
Of Flora's shining empire. 

Every tuft 
Is populous with panting life and toil — 
Each tree is tremulous with melody, 
Each dainty leaf, each dewy blade of grass, 
Stirs into music at the gentlest touch 
Of every passing wind. 

Ye who would hear 
The primal symphonies by Adam heard 
Amid the velvet vales of Paradise, 
Go down, go down, to the embowering woods, — 
Go down into the pulsing, summer woods, — 
Forgetful and forgotten of the world. 
And in a rosy rhapsody of rest 
Throw wide the spirit's portals to the fresh, 
Out-flowing voices of the universe, — 



The Lute of Life 213 



The voices of the everlasting hills, 
The voices of the rivers and the rocks, 
The rivulets, the rushes, and the reeds, 
And all the wizard-rhythm of the shades. 

Let the light spirit, loosened from the thrall 
Of every-day distraction, wander free, 
And quaff the nectar of a nobler hope. 
The sweeter incense of a higher sphere, 
And, on the star-crowned summits of the mind, 
Model ambitions of sublimer mold. 



SONG OF THE SKEPTIC 

When from the North the long, cold night 
Slides down the snowy, moonless air. 
How sweet to sit and smoke and stare, 

And muse upon the world, and write. 

To study mankind 'twixt our toes, 
Through wreaths of aromatic smoke, 
And deem the life we live a joke, 

No matter how it comes or goes. 

To dream that grief is but a jest, 
To fancy joy is but a dream — 
To feel that what we see or seem 

Must be forever for the best. 

If beggars cry, why, let them cry — 
The world is not the work of ours; — 
Who made the sunshine, makes the showers ; 

Who made the liar, makes the lie. 

To some, perchance, this seemeth strange. 
But they who doubt it must deny 
The wisdom or the power on high 

That shapes the very laws of change. 



214 The Lute of Life 

The lot of each man is the worst, 
According to his own bHnd eyes; 
Himself the standard, in disguise, 

Of luckless fortune, last and first. 

We strive to change the changeless laws 
Of God with syllables of prayer — 
With crazy supplications dare 

To challenge nature's primal Cause. 

Are we responsible for life — 

Or were we torn from nothingness. 
And clothed in garments of distress. 

And circumstanced with sin and strife? 

What know we, standing here alone 
Upon the farther shores of fate ; 
What can we do but work and wait, 

And dream, and doubt, and wonder on? 

Ere long we hobble down to death. 
From earthly scenes we slip away — 
We quit the precincts of the day, 

And sleep the dewy vales beneath. 

We mix and mingle with the clod, 
We pass from our companions' eyes, 
And no one telleth, when he dies, 

The cruel secrets of the sod. 

No cries of ours, no scalding tears, 

No mad expostulations, can 

Afifect creation's awful plan 
One instant in the sweep of years. 

Build high the fire, heap up the wood. 
Pick up your pipe and dream it out ; 
Dissolve in smoke the ghosts of doubt. 

And trust that all is grand and good. 



The Lute of Life 215 



DOOM 

There is a legend by the Norsemen told, 
How Odin to each field of battle sends 
His priestess, Valkyr, at whose finger-ends 

The spools of destiny are all unrolled ; 

Pallid as Parian marble and as cold, 

She passes where the thickest carnage trends, 
Ambassadress of doom to foes and friends. 

Marking for speedy death the strong and bold. 

So, in the silent underlands of life, 

Concealed amidst the sunshine, airy forms 
And subtle sit perpetually and spin 
The tangled toils that trip us in the strife, — 
They braid the lightning and unbind the storms. 
And ope the gates for death to enter in. 



THE NEW DOCTOR 

When the race of old doctors runs out, 
And the new doctor comes with a shout, 

And a jangle of new-fangled things that he 
brings. 
How the pulse of the public will prance 
At the sound of his footsteps, and dance 

To the song he seductively sings ! 

When the new doctor comes in his pride, 
The dead will be sorry they died, — 
In fact, they will sigh for an ache 

Or a pain to endure, 
And all for the sake — for the exquisite sake — 
Of a new-fashioned cure. 

When they look at his pellets so pink. 
And elixirs that none could resist. 

They will groan in their graves, as they think 
Of the beautiful drugs that they missed : — 



2i6 The Lute of Life 



Of the tablet that melts on the lips, 
Of the tincture that sparkles and drips 

Like a wine of the South, — 
Of the granule that glimmers like gold, 
Of the triturate softer to hold 

Than the dew of a kiss on the mouth. 

Ah ! the dead, they will rise in revolt, 
Recalling the dreadful old doses 

Of jalap and gamboge and malt, 

That turned both their stomachs and noses ; 

And the blessed old doctor who lies 
With his critical patients, down there. 

Will wish he had only been wise 

And had worked on a section somewhere. 

Or had followed a well-digger's calling 
Instead of a thankless profession 
That ended in such a mad session 

Of rancorous brawling and bawling. 

And yet, there's a flaw in the flute. 
For certain old fogies there be 

Who still hold in the highest repute 
The plain and old-fashioned M. D., 
The quaint and congenial M. D., 
Whose saddle-bags knocked at his knee 

As he jogged up the pike 

On the back of Old Mike, 

Like a knight of exalted degree. 
Aye, still his dear face they can see, 

And hear all his "hems" and his "haws," 
As he trails down the track 
With a pack on his back. 

Like a picture of old Santa Claus: — 

But hush ! let my raillery pause 
For a space, — let my fancy refuse 
Every prompting, and mute be my muse, 

Ere the faintest reflection it cast 

On our fathers whose labors are past. 



The Lute of Life 217 



Tho the future may flout them and scout them 

The world had been sadder without them ; 
Tho^ they rest in their graves without glory, 
Iho they live not in song nor in story, 

No prophet— no priest— had a mission' 
More sacred thro' all the dumb years 

Than that of the old-time physician, 
Whose dust we bedew with our tears. 

A GOLDEN WEDDING 

Take out the distaflf and the reel, 
Take out the loom and spinning-wheel, 
For lo ! 'tis almost set of sun ; 
The weaver's work at last is done — 
The knot is tied— the web is spun. 
Go hang it on the western walls 
Where yonder sinking sunlight falls, 
And count the cost in hopes and fears. 
In disappointments, doubts, and tears,' 
Of that gold fabric of the years. 

O wondrous work! To-day it stands 

A witness of the willing hands 

That thro' long days and nights of pain 
So ceaseless toiled with might and main 
To gain the goal to-night they gain — 

The recompense of work well done, 

The love of man and woman won 
By countless acts of kindness, such 
As Envy's finger may not touch, 
And God can not reward too much. 

Twin-toilers, greyed with goodly deeds. 

The record of your struggle reads 

Like some quaint legend, downward flung 
From prophet's pen or poet's tongue, 
Of heroes, when the world was young ; 



2i8 The Lute of Life 



Or like some fairy story told 

Of fortitude, in days of old, 

When Arthur's Knights in Lyonesse 
Rode forth to succor the distress 
Of Innocence and Loveliness. 

To-night, Love's planet, like the moon, 

Is rounded to its plenilune, 

In skies of azure, soft and clear. 

And all the dewy atmosphere 

Is laced with laughter, far and near, — 

With laughter, and the tinkling feet 

Of rowdy children, swift to greet 
The silvered saint, within whose eyes 
They trace the trail of nuts and pies. 
With instinct wonderfully wise. 

O happy pair ! O flower-crowned night ! 

Love glimmers like a chrysolite 
From every glad and glancing eye 
As runs the rosy revel high 
Beneath the blue September sky. 

With lisp of lute and virelay, 

We braid with song their bridal-day; 
And on this heap of golden sheaves 
We lay a wreath of laurel leaves 
That Friendship's hand for Honor weaves. 



A DREAM 

"Have you forgotten me?" she said. 
As I, her old-time worshiper. 
Stood blanched and bloodless as the dead 
And gazed upon the face of her. 

As soon may yon poor bird (thought I) 
Left mangled by the hedge to die. 
Forget the shaft that festers yet 
Within its breast, — as I forget. 



The Lute of Life 219 



But, oh! each old remembered wrong 

Died in an instant when I traced 

The lines of agony that laced 

The face of her I loved so long. 

I read within her channelled cheek 
A wretchedness no tongue could speak, — 
And so, bent with the pain of years, 
I wept, — and kissed her thro' my tears. 



BEFORE THE DOCTOR 

She quivered like a frightened fawn, her lashes 
Sodden with long suffering, as she stood 
Before the Healer, blanched with motherhood 

Of guilt and shame, her girl-heart turned to ashes ; 

Then sudden as a glacier that crashes 
Tumultuous down Shasta or Mount Hood, 
The ice slid from her spirit in a flood, 

Disclosing all its secret sears and gashes. 

The listener shuddered as the sinking sun 

Streamed thro' the flowerless chasms of her soul, 
Naked and penitent, and unforgiven 
By all save him, the tender-hearted one, 
Who stooped beside her, striving to console. 
And Him who reached a hand to her from 
Heaven. 



A RHYME OF RESIGNATION 

Curled up here in the heart of the world. 
What care we how the wild winds blow ? 

However the wheels of fate be whirled. 
We'll sing together through weal or woe ; 

Better forever to laugh than cry. 

For never a sob nor a tear can buy 

One crumb for the journey that all men go. 



220 The Lute of Life 



Let dreamers dream of a day more fair, 
Of a state more flourishing yet to be — 

But happier far are they who share 
The opulent Now, with its gleam and glee ; 

Better one moment of brave, sweet mirth 

Than all vain hopes that have vexed the earth 
Since God first parted the land and sea. 



WHAT DOES IT MATTER? 

What does it matter to me or you 

If death should come in a year, or a day, — 

Is it better to plod with the puny few 

Than, kinglike, stride from the world away? 

When the bugles of doom begin to play. 
When the end draws nigh, and the grave 's in view, 

Shall we pule like cowards, and plead to stay. 
Or face our fates as the martyrs do? 

Life has less of the rose than rue. 

And always more of the March than the May ; 
When the hopes are flown that our hearts pursue, 

Death, if he love us, should not delay. 

When Love lies stark by the sombre yew, 
Then sleep is sweet, though it last for aye ; 

So what does it matter to me or you 
If we die in a year, or die to-day? 



DAY AND NIGHT 

When drowsy Day draws round his downy bed 
The Tyrian tapestries of gold and red, 

And, weary of his flight, 

Puts out the palace light, — 
'Tis night! 



The Lute of Life 221 



When languid Night, awakening with a yawn, 
Leaps down the moon-washed stairway of the dawn, 

In trailing disarray. 

Sweeping the dews away,— 
'T is day ! 



AD FINEM 

I 'd have some old friend near me when I die — 
Some old familiar face in kindness bent 
Above my bed, when my last hour is spent, — 

Some gentle hand that in the days gone by 

Has clasped my own in firmest fealty, 
And known each failing and each fair intent ; — 
I simply ask that such alone be sent 

To brace me with brave words and close my eye. 

However tenderly the stranger try 

To ease my anguish and allay my pain, 

I miss the glances to which mine reply 

Like famished grasses unto summer rain, — 
And so in fancy of the end, I fain 

Would have some old friend near me when I die. 



IN SOUDAN 

Ended that strange career, 

Long so victorious, 
Slain by an Arab's spear, 

Gordon, the glorious; 
Stark under torrid skies, 

Girdled with gloom, 
Britain's best soldier lies 

Dead in Khartoum. 

Stewart falls bleeding, and 
Earle is in glory, — 



222 The Lute of Life 



Steady, now ! hand to hand, 

Sweep all before ye ! 
Close up the shattered square, 

Stand fast, who can! 
Strike ! while a hope is there 

L<eft in Soudan. 

Mothers of England, weep! 

Weep, sons and daughters! 
Weep for the brave who sleep, 

Hard by Nile's waters! 
Weep for your Burnaby 

Dead in the van, — 
Weep ye, for all who lie 

Cold in Soudan. 



LAY OF THE HOPELESS 

Here they lie beneath the grass. 
Folded in a fleece of flowers; 
Like to shadows over glass 
They have passed, as we must pass. 
These associates of ours. 

In the coffined earth they dwell, 
Neighbors to each other yet ; 
Sealed in Death's eternal cell. 
Sweetly slumber they, and well. 
Under vine and violet. 

Theirs to sleep, but not to dream; 

Never shall they lift their lashes; 
Cheerless as the moon's pale beam. 
Or the stars that nightly gleam 

On their tablets, are their ashes. 

Here the king forgets his gold, 
Foes lie here with one another; 



The Lute of Life 223 



To these tenements of mold 
Nature gathers all her fold, — 
She, the tender, loving mother. 

Fickle is this breathing clay, 
Love is mutable as matter ; 
But when Death shuts out the day, 
Farewell doubt and all dismay! 
Clods are friends that never flatter. 

Dust above and dust below. 

Dust our dwelling, dust are we; 

Dust is all the fact we know — 

Dust the universe, and lo! 
"Dust to dust" is its decree. 

Thro' the pallid worm's red lips 
Lies the path we all pursue. 
Leading down to Life's eclipse. 
Where no daylight ever dips 
And no starlight reaches to. 



A SONG 

One year ago to-night, love, 

One little year ago. 
Our hearts were beating light, love. 

Our spirits were aglow; 
Your eyes, to mine replying, 
Were like the warm stars lying 

On tropic seas below — 
One year ago to-night, love. 

One little year ago. 

One year ago to-night, love, 

Not any care was ours ; 
Time halted in his flight, love, 
To sleep among the flowers; 



224 The Lute of Life 



Your hand in mine reposing 
Was like a dove a-dozing 

At dusk amid the bowers — 
One year ago to-night, love, 

Not any care was ours. 

One year ago to-night, love, 

We walked in paradise ; 
And all the stars in sight, love, 

Were shining in your eyes ; 
But time and fate together 
Have brought the wintry weather 

And shut the smiling skies — 
(One year ago to-night, love. 

We walked in paradise). 



A BALLAD OF TEARS 

"The tears I shed must ever fall," 

Low moaned a mother, as she kept 
A nightly vigil over all 

Her household idols as they slept ; 
The storm came down against the pane. 

She heard, far off, strange voices call. 
As still she sobbed in drear refrain, 

"The tears I shed must ever fall." 

"The tears I shed must ever fall," 

Sighed one — an aged man — who stood 
Beside a tablet gray and tall, 

Far in a churchyard's solitude ; 
The past burned back upon his brain 

With dreams of bliss beyond recall, — 
Poor soul ! he whispered thro' his pain, 

"The tears I shed must ever fall." 

"The tears I shed must ever fall," 
A hungry, houseless exile wailed, 



The Lute of Life 225 

As o'er him, from a festal-hall, 

The lights of joy and splendor trailed. 

He wept, — his weeping was in vain, 
For death itself could not forestall 

The anguish of his cold refrain, 
"The tears I shed must ever fall." 

"The tears I shed must ever fall," 

A lone girl sang, and singing, heard 
The waves beat on the dim sea-wall 

In mournful melody and weird ; 
The night caught up the plaintive strain. 

As, folding round her, like a pall, 
It rustled to the dull refrain, 

"The tears I shed must ever fall." 



THE PEASANT AND THE POET 

Strode a peasant, worn and weary, 
Near a poet, lying very 
Lazily within the shadow 
Of a cool tree by the meadow ; 
And the peasant, care-encumbered, 
Fell to chiding him who slumbered 
So serenely while his neighbors 
Found no surcease from their labors. 

"Lazy poet, lolling yonder, 
What is life to you, I wonder, 
That, while out at heel and pocket, 
You can laugh at it and mock it, — 
Spin it from your pencil-tip, 
Puff it lightly from your lip, — 
Never caring, never knowing. 
Whence it came or whither going? 

"Lazy poet, dreaming yonder, 
Coolly choosing thus to squander 

'5 



2 26 The Lute of Life 



All your spirit's subtle sinew, 
All the strength of genius in you, 
On a lover's silly sonnet, — 
Has the broad earth nothing on it, 
Nothing better worth your while, 
Than a dimple or a smile? 

"Lazy poet, nodding yonder, 
Care you not at all, I wonder, 
For the troubles that perplex us, 
For the daily ills that vex us? 
Care you nothing for the sorrow 
Of the present or the morrow?" 

Then the poet, rising merely 

From his napping, sang so clearly, 

Sang so bravely and sincerely, 

Of the world's woes that oppressed him. 

That the peasant turned — and blessed him. 



THE MEADOW-LARK 

Of all the song-birds of the circling year, 
There is not one so musical, so sweet. 
So heavenly perfect, yet so incomplete. 

As is the meadow-lark, that rises clear 

At rosy daybreak, when the spring is near, 
Dashing the dew-drops from its dainty feet. 
And fluttering down the rolling fields of wheat. 

To pipe its ditties in the south-wind's ear. 

To me it is the bird of Paradise — 
I never hear its wild notes but a thrill 
Of boyish love and unconstrained delight 
Possess my soul, and waft me through the night 
Of songless years to childhood's happy skies, 
And all the sunless void with raptures fill. 



The Lute of Life 227 



TO MY ABSENT WIFE 

How slowly, sadly move the hours 
Each day across the dial of my life, 
Since thou, with those two prattling boys of ours, 

Art gone from me, dear wife. 

Sadly thy gentle voice I miss, 
Thy voice more mellow than the lyre or lute; 
I miss thy soft caress, thy tender kiss, 

And all Love's flower and fruit. 

I miss thy body's matchless grace, 
Its peerless presence, its unstudied art, — 
I miss the music of thy form and face, 

The glow of thy fond heart. 

I count the tardy days, as one 
Who waits in ecstasy the bridal night, 
Impatient for each slow-descending sun 

To sheathe his shafts of light. 

How oft amid the twilight grey 
I musing sit beside the dark'ning door. 
My doom divining wert thou borne away 

From me forevermore. 

Perish the cruel dream, the thought! 
Apart from thine, my soul can not exist; 
Death may divide us for a time, — but not 

Eternally, I wist. 

I mutter no mock sentiment! 
This love of mine is tempered and annealed 
With all the trustfulness and calm content 

That Heaven itself can yield. 

How sad must be the lot of him 
Who daily feels his heart's affections fail, — 



228 The Lute of Life 



Whose soul grows sullen, and whose senses swim 
Against love's genial gale. 

Dear wife, upon this spotless scroll 
I trace with feeble skill the fancies keen 
That crowd the cheerless chambers of my soul 

Since thou hast absent been. 

Good-night, fond one, the hour grows late! 
As softly sinks yon moon into the West, 
So sink my watchful spirit, with its weight 

Of love, into thy breast. 



TO MADGE 

You fear your body's beauty, not your soul. 

Allures me most, my dear — 
Banish the thought! your spirit is a scroll 

On whose bright page appear 
All graces that I dream of — all I love, 

And all for which I pray; 
A woman's tender heart I prize above 

Its shell of crumbling clay. 

The charms of body, lovely to the eye, 

Are but as rainbow rays 
That bend and brighten in the summer sky, 

But vanish as we gaze ; 
While the pure soul, as steady as a star, 

Pours its eternal light 
Around about us, howsoever far 

We wander in the night. 

The ruby lips, the lily cheeks, will pale, 

The sparkling eyes grow dim — 
The firm, elastic flesh at length will fail. 

And lameness find each limb; 
But fadeless are the beauteous thoughts that burn 



The Lute of Life 229 



Above this fleeting breath ; 
The soul's fair temple into dust may turn. 
But love shall laugh at death. 



THE OLD HOUSE-FLY 

Go throw the shutters open wide and lift the windows 
high, 

Let out the silence and the gloom, let in the jolly fly ; 

I 'm weary of this stale repose, and long to hear again 

The sweetest sound of all the year, the fly upon the 
pane ; — 

I long to see him bobbing up and down the sill and 
sash, 

I long to feel his tickling tread upon my soft mus- 
tache ; 

I love to see him tilting on his slender, tender toes, 

I love to watch him bump and buzz, and balance on 
his nose. 

In all the universe, to-day, of merry song and glee, 

O, tell me where 's another that is happier than he. 

Then throw the shutters open wide and lift the win- 
dows high. 

Let out the gloom and silence, and let in the jolly fly. 

O the old house-fly! O the brave house-fly! 
A-straddling o'er the butter-dish, a-sprawling o'er the 

pie,— 
A-jogging thro' the jell and jam, and jouncing round 

the cream 
As prone to risk a summer sail upon the milky stream ; 
A roving life the rascal leads thro' all the rosy hours, 
A-sipping only of the sweets and skipping all the 

sours ; 
A button-headed roustabout, a lover light and bold, 
Who revels on the ripest lips that mortal eyes behold ; 
Who clambers up the softest cheek and up the whitest 

arm, 



230 The Lute of Life 

And loiters on the fairest breast that ever love made 
warm. 

Then throw the shutters open wide and lift the win- 
dows high, 

Let out the silence and the gloom, let in the jolly fly. 

O the old house-fly! O the jolly house-fly! 

He was present at our coming, he '11 be with us when 
we die; 

From Turkestan to Mexico his broad dominion runs, 

And his nature never changes with the "process of 
the suns"; 

From the days of dusky Cheops, down thro' centuries 
of dirt, 

'Tis a matter of conjecture if he ever washed his shirt ; 

He has dined with every poet from the patriarchal 
Chaucer, 

He has often taken pleasure-trips in Billy Shake- 
speare's saucer; 

He dipped his saucy noddle into Cleopatra's cup 

When the amorous Antonius his kingdom offered up. 

Then throw the shutters open wide and lift the win- 
dows high, 

(Let out the silence and the gloom, let in the jolly fly. 

O the old house-fly ! O the naughty house-fly ! 

He dances on the baby's lip and on the dead man's 

eye; 
He 's first to taste the tawny wine within the tippler's 

glass, 
He prances on the prelate's nose whene'er he goes to 

mass; 
He 's found within the skipper's hut and in the gilded 

hall, 
A giddy gambolier, who pays his compliments to all ; 
When our mothers rocked the cradles in the cabins 

of our birth, 
His happy chorus blended with the cricket on the 

hearth, — 



The Lute of Life 231 



And I love the recollection of the hours I 've se&n him 
crawl, 

In the summer-time of childhood, up and down the 
whitened wall. 

Then throw the shutters open wide and lift the win- 
dows high, 

Let out the gloom and silence, and let in the jolly fly. 



TO THE BARD THAT IS TO BE 

O, sing no more of Pan, — 

Let him slumber, if you can, 

By the old Italian streams 

Where he died. 
With his pipe and with his dreams 
At his side. 

And sing no more of Venus, 
Or of Bacchus or Silenus, 
Where the Roman rivers flow ; 

Let them rest 
For a thousand years or so, — 
It is best. 

Sing no longer of Apollo, 
And the goddesses that follow 
Up Olympus, lone and dim, 

In his train, — 
We have had enough of him 
And his reign. 

Come away, and let them go, 
They have nothing left to show 
That is worthy of the hands 

Of to-day,— 
In the mythologic lands 
Let them stay. 



232 The Lute of Life 

If you be a poet true, 
Sing us something that is new — ' 
Something on a higher plan 

That will thrill 
And enthrall the heart of man, 
If you will. 

Sing a song that will awake 
Whispered praises for the sake 
Of the minstrel that can so 

Gladden us, 
As he fareth to and fro, 
Singing thus. 

There's a world of grander themes 
Than the dead old days and dreams 
Trampled in the dust of Greece 

Or of Rome, — 
You can find it, if you please? 
Nearer home. 

Then turn your eyes away 
From the ruins dim and gray 
Of the past, — ^and for a time 

Let them rest 
On a region more sublime, 
Lying west. 



THE SONG WE SEEK 

Somewhere in the Soul's white center, 
Where Art is forbidden to enter. 
The sweetest song and the best 
Forever waits unexpressed. 

Trilled by no human tongue, 
It still must bide unsung 
Till mortal flesh shall fail 
And Love o'er all prevail. 



The Lute of Life 233 



Ye seek, but ye can not find it, 
O poets, till death unbind it, 
And then, like a living thing, 
It shall leap to the light and sing. 
Ear hath never caught 
The beauty of its thought — 
And the rapture of its tone 
Is Eternity's alone. 



INSOMNIA 

Into the dark and chambered deep 

I wearily cast my eye, 
And cry to the echoing night for sleep, 

But ever in vain I cry. 

For the wheels of memory turn. 

And passions old arise. 
And the wasted years come back and bum 

The slumber out of my eyes. 

And I sob like a child in pain. 
For the rest that comes not nigh ; 

And out in the dark I hear the rain, 
Where my shattered idols lie. 



•^ AN ODD FANCY 

Beneath this covering of flesh our skeletons are march- 
ing to the grave, and everything on earth that we 
long for and that ive love is but a covered skele- 
ton. — Hon. Newton Booth. 

Just back of the light of her eyes. 
Just under the pink of her hands. 

Whose velvet the lily out-vies, 
A skeleton stands. 



234 The Lute of Life 

Beneath the gold crown of her tress, 
And the clustering gems that she wears, 

And under the silks that caress, 
A skeleton stares. 

Her laughter is that of a lover. 
Her lips are as lush as the South, 

And I shudder to think they but cover 
A skeleton's mouth. 

Her steps are as light as the low 
Drip of dew from the rim of a rose, 

Yet I know that wherever they go 
A skeleton goes. 

She sits at the banquet with me, 
And ever her loveliness wins ; 

Yet back of her beauty I see 
A skeleton grins. 

She is first at the party and ball, 
And the grace of her motion entrances 

Like music; — yet under it all 
A skeleton dances. 

Tho' shocked at the plight she is in, 
One thought I have kept out of view: 

Perhaps she sees under my skin 
A skeleton, too. _ 



PASSION'S CHECKMATE 

Bring him to his knees, and make 
All his hardened heart-strings quake 
With the hot mesmeric glance 
Of thy crafty countenance ; 
Blind him with thy beauty till 
He hath neither wit nor will ; 



The Lute of Life 235 



Pet his passion till he grow 
Tiger-fierce — then bid him go. 

Let no pity move thee — he 

Never pitied one like thee. 

Sting him with thy charms, and then 

Loop him in thine arms again ; 

Bind him — coil him in thy tress 

With an artful tenderness, 

Till his fevered lips shall glow 

Pleadingly — then bid him go. 

Just a little short of death 
Pause, and give him back his breath ; 
Spare his life, but let him find 
How the wheels of passion grind ; 
Teach him this, that true-love is 
Sweeter than a wanton's kiss; 
Crush him till he cry — and so 
Break his pride and bid him go. 



TO A SLEEPING BOY 

Ah, little dreamer! stealing from the day 
The golden keystone of the arching hours, 
To lay thy drowsy head among the flowers, 

And down Lethean waters sail away ! 

The wind is in thy ringlets, boy, and they, 
In flossy tumult, fall in fairy showers 
Around thy cheek, and all thy childish powers 

Are chained in sleep, beneath the sun's bright ray. 

The beetle, droning in the apple tree, 
Thy mate is, and the whistling bobolink 

Pipes half his sweetest roundelays to thee; — 

Sleep, little truant, in the singing grass ! 

The days will wither, and the years will shrink.. 

And all too soon thy rosy dreams will pass. 



236 The Lute of Life 



"JOUKYD ADDLES" 

O, where is Joukydaddles, 

O, where, where, where — 
The little chubby codger 

That was toddlin' here and there, 
With the jelly on his chin. 

And the butter on his cheeks, 
And his lubber little legs 

With their puddle-muck streaks? 

O, where is Joukydaddles, 

O, where, where, where — 
With the bonnie breezes blowin' 

In his curly brown hair; 
The little busybody 

In his berry-stained shirt, 
A-dabblin' with his wee 

Tawny fingers in the dirt? 

O, where is Joukydaddles, 

O, where, where, where — 
Who daily used to tumble 

Down the old cellar-stair; 
The burly little bandit 

With the big jeweled eyes, — 
The bloody buccaneer 

'Mong the bugs and butterflies ? 

O, where is Joukydaddles, 

O, where, where, where — 
We never see him here, 

And we never hear him there ; 
There's a shadow at the threshold, 

A silence on the floor, 
And a dusty little roundabout 

Is danglin' on the door; 
We call — but Joukydaddles 

Never answers any more. 



The Lute of Life 237 



THE GHOSTS OF MY GARDEN 

The ghosts of my garden ! 

They glimmer — they shine 
In the moonlight, aghast, 

Thro' this casement of mine; 
They start in their star-shrouds, 

Adrift from the brown 
Braided grass that, by daylight, 

Close fetters them down, — 
The ghosts of my garden. 

The ghosts of my garden ! 

They glisten— they rise, 
With the frost .on their faces, 

The death on their eyes; 
No turf can entomb them, 

No prison confine, — 
They swarm in the shadow, 

But shrink in the shine, — 
The ghosts of my garden. 

The ghosts of my garden ! 

The lily — the rose — 
They meet there, they greet there, 

Knee-deep in the snows ; — 
The queens of the summer 

Discrowned of their gold, — 
The skies can not shrive them, 
The earth can not hold — 

The ghosts of my garden. 

The ghosts of my garden ! 

The hollyhock stands 
By the foxglove, bowed low, 

With closed eyes and clasp'd hands; 
While the scepterless sunflower. 

Sedately and tall, 
Caressingly stoops 



238 The Lute of Life 



As if blessing them all, — 
The ghosts of my garden. 

The ghosts of my garden! 

They shimmer — they sweep 
Thro' the field of my vision, 

As dreams do, in sleep; 
They start in their star-shrouds, 

Adrift from the brown 
Braided grass that, by daylight. 

Close fetters them down, — 
The ghosts of my garden. 



MY GUEST 

There is a guest that I detest, forever at my side, 
Who clings to me as fondly as a bridegroom to his 

bride ; 
Who leers at me and jeers at me, and when I cross 

his will, 
Who only smiles sardonic'ly, and hugs me closer still ; 
I hate him, and berate him, yet he trudges at my heels, 
And reaches in my pockets, and revels at my meals ; 
I defy him, and would fly him, but he only presses 

closer. 
And whispers to each wish of mine an everlasting 

"No, sir." 
I have chided and derided till I 'm almost out of heart, 
I 've abused him and misused him, but he never will 

depart ; — 
He squeezes me and freezes me, and well-nigh drives 

me mad, 
He tortures and he teases me, and growls when I am 

glad; 
He glares at me and stares at me, as any ghoul might 

do. 
He has shattered every promise that my soul was an- 
chored to; 



The Lute of Life 239 

He has wrecked me, and bedecked me with the tat- 
tered garbs of woe, 
He has crossed my happy threshold, and has laid my 

loved ones low ; 
He 's as wary as a beagle, and he grins in such a style 
That the cunning of a serpent is apparent in his 

smile ; 
He is lank, he is lean, and his fingers are unclean, 
He is ragged, he is haggard, he is spiteful and he 's 

mean ; 
Than Adam he is older, than Satan he is bolder. 
He 's as ghastly as a skeleton, and uglier and colder ; 
When the winter-winds are dire, he sits crouching 

at my fire. 
And glowering at my beggary with eyes that never 

tire ; 
He 's the parent of all crime, in each country and each 

clime. 
And has tramped the wide world over hand in hand 

with Father Time ; 
His record all may read in the hearts that break and 

bleed, 
On the lips of little children that forever pine and 

plead ; 
And his deeds are further written over sleepless eyes 

red-litten. 
Over cold and empty cradles, over roofs by sorrow 

smitten. 
Over shattered hopes once cherished, over pleasures 

that have perished, 
Over broken dreams of glory that a better manhood 

nourished ; 
In the byways and the highways he goes onward un- 
molested. 
And wakes the world to labor ere its weary hands 

are rested ; 
He 's a beggar and a ranger, and was present, not a 

stranger. 
At the birth of the Messiah, in the cold Judean manger ; 



240 The Lute of Life 

He has trailed along the path of the tempest in its 
wrath, 

And has gloated o'er the ruins of the moldered after- 
math; 

He 's the Prince of Empty Pockets, out at elbow and 
at knee, 

He 's a knight without a copper, whom we nickname — 
Poverty. 



VALE! 

Farewell, O nights of ceaseless ecstasies! 

Farewell old loves, and all the tranced- hours ! 

Far flies my spirit's bark, and darkly lowers. 
On every hand, the tempest-breathing skies ; 
The lifted ocean lit with lurid eyes 

Breaks round me — bears me with resistless powers 

Thitherward from a land of light and flowers. 
To the bleak islands where no morns arise. 

My panting heart leans backwardly forlorn, 
Reluctant to resign the dear delight 
With which my restless boyhood was bedight. 

Ere I had known that man was made to mourn ; — 
But farewell, happy hours, no more to be. 
The storms are out — strange shores are beck'ning 
me. 



A RETORT 

I deem it wrong — ah, more than wrong — ' 
That one so blest with man's esteem 

Should thus declare, with cynic tongue, 
That friendship 's but an empty dream. 

Be bitter, if thou wilt, and blind 
To every virtue, every grace, — 



The Lute of Life 241 



But still let honest friendship find 
Within thy heart a welcome place. 

Be not a scoffer, vain and cold, 

With sordid wishes, selfish ends, — 

The very earth disdains to hold 
The renegade who has no friends. 

The world, God knows, is foul enough 
With petty jealousies and jeers, — 

Then sing no more, or sing of Love 
And all her merry worshipers. 

And say not, while the blood of youth 
Doth mantle o'er thy cheek like flame, 

That hearts are strangers unto truth 
And friendship's but an empty name. 



BALLADE OF BUSY DOCTORS 

When winter pipes in the poplar-tree. 

And soles are shod with the snow and sleet- 
When sick-room doors close noiselessly, 

And doctors hurry along the street; 

When the bleak north-winds at the gables beat. 
And the flaky noon of the night is nigh. 

And the reveler's laugh grows obsolete, — 
Then Death, white Death, is a-driving by. 

When the cowering sinner crooks his knee 

At the cradle-side, in suppliance sweet. 
And friends converse in a minor key, 

And doctors hurry along the street; 

When Croesus flies to his country seat, 
And castaways in the garret cry, 

And in each house is a "shape' and a sheet," — 
Then Death, white Death, is a-driving by. 
16 



242 The Lute of Life 

When the blast of the autumn blinds the bee, 

And the long rains fall on the ruined wheat, 
When a. glimmer of green on the pools we see, 

And doctors hurry along the street ; 

When every fellow we chance to meet 
Has a fulvous glitter in either eye. 

And a weary wobble in both his feet, — 
Then Death, white Death, is a-driving by. 

l' e^nvoi 

When farmers ride at a furious heat, 
And doctors hurry along the street, 
. With brave hearts under a scowling sky, — 
Then Death, white Death, is a-driving by. 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

Sailing before the silver shafts of mom. 

He bore the White Christ over alien seas — 
The swart Columbus — into "lands forlorn" 

That lay beyond the dim Hesperides ; — 
Humbly he gathered up the broken chain 

Of human knowledge, and, with sails unfurled, 
He drew it westward from the coast of Spain 

And linked it firmly to another world. 

Tho' blinding tempests drove his ships astray. 

And on the decks conspiring Spaniards grew 
More mutinous and dangerous, day by day, 

Than did the deadly winds that round him blew,- 
Yet the blufif Captain, with his bearded lip, 

His lordly purpose and his high disdain, 
Stood like a master with uplifted whip 

And urged his mad sea-horse o'er the main. 

Onward and onward thro' the blue profound, 
Into the West a thousand leagues or more. 



The Lute of Life 243 

His carvels cut the billows till they ground 
Upon the shallows of San Salvador; 

Then robed in scarlet like a rising morn 

He climbed ashore, and on the shining sod 

He gave to Man a continent new-born, 
Then, kneeling, gave his gratitude to God. 

And his reward ! In all the books of fate 

There is no page so pitiful as this, — 
A cruel dungeon and a monarch's hate. 

And penury and calumny were his ; 
Robbed of his honors in his feeble age. 

Despoiled of glory, the old Genoese 
Withdrew at length from life's ungrateful stage 

To try the waves of other unknown seas. 



THE EXECUTION 

(a CHRISTMAS TRAGEDY) 

'Twas the saddest execution we remember to have read 
Since the Holy Galilean on the cruel cross-tree bled, — • 
And like the dear Redeemer, too, the one of whom 

we write 
Was blameless as an angel, and as beauteous and 

white ; 
His eyes were blue as Heaven, and his hair as bright 

as gold 
As it rippled o'er his temples and around his shoulders 

rolled. 

In truth, he was as innocent of any conscious wrong 

As the spirits of the circle where the seraphim belong ; 

His cheeks were round and rosy, and his lips as free 
from taint 

As the incense that arises to the image of a saint; 

And his naked feet were pearly as a baby's newly- 
shod 

For the home-returning journey to the nursery of God. 



244 The Lute of Life 

And though his heart was softer than the down upon 

a dove, 
And though his only mission was a ministry of love, 
Yet hands were laid upon him, and he was torn away 
Like a criminal and carried to a dungeon cold and 

gray, 
Without one sympathetic voice to cheer him as he 

went 
Alone into that awful place of utter banishment. 

No food was ever offered him, nor any kindly tone 
Consoled him in the silence where he suffered all 

alone ; 
No ministering angel ever came to dew his lip 
With a syllable of mercy or of sweet companionship; 
And yet he never murmured — never muttered, as he 

bore 
The solitude and darkness that forever brooded o'er. 

But finally they brought him forth, one stormy winter 

night ; 
They refused him any trial — ^they denied him every 

right ; 
But patiently he bore it, and no word escaped his 

tongue 
As they read the fatal warrant and the rope before 

him swung; — 
'Twas the saddest execution human eye did ever see, 
For they hung him, at the dead o' night, upon the — 

Christmas-tree ! 



WHEN MAIDS FORGET 

When maids forget that men are frail. 
And men forget that maids can veil 
Deception with a siren's sigh, — 
Look out for heartaches, by and by, 
For lids that weep and lips that wail. 



The Lute of Life 245 

The warmest cheeks grow chill and pale, 
And fairest loves wax faint and fail, 
And purest passions droop and die. 
When maids forget. 

When maids forget and, thoughtless, hail 
Some tender swain, and heed the tale 

That pleads expression in his eye, — 

Beware! the best of lovers lie. 
And evil arts too oft prevail. 
When maids forget. 



DR. JOHN A. WARDER 
( ARB0RICU1.TURIST ) 

His was the gentle spirit of the woods. 
The genius of the tongueless mysteries. 
Eternally that dwell within the trees. 

The flowers, the grasses, and the bursting buds; 

A member of their secret brotherhoods. 
He caught the everlasting symphonies 
Of all the lute-lipped leaves. He held the keys 

Of Nature's variant moods and solitudes. 

A Druid gray, his loving life-blood leapt 
In transport tremulous, beneath the power 

Of beauty and of symmetry that slept 
Within the petals of the frailest flower ; 

Sweetest of all the songless bards! he kept 
His great soul stainless in his Eden-bower. 



A NEW NOCTURNE 

Ho! brother-poets, hold your tongue 
About the birds and golden grain; 

Those idle songs have all been sung, 
And why repeat the empty strain? 



246 The Lute of Life 

Let hermit-thrushes pipe at will, 
And elder-blossoms blow and blow, 

Such things can never truly thrill 
The heart of any man below. 

The blazing sun, the birds, the flowers. 

They rather mar a summer stroll ; 
Give me the moonlight's cooling hours 

With some sweet comrade of my soul. 
Whose loyal lips like petals drip 

With dewy dreams, amid the bowers, 
That sanctify a fellowship 

Of hearts that leap and love like ours. 



THE SECRET 

He stayed at home, a dreamer still, 
Unknown of all — with small desire 

To roam beyond his native hill, 
His own hearth-fire. 

A common toiler, poor and plain. 
No unsuspecting eye could scan 

The promise ripening in the brain 
Of that lone man. 

His lowly life was like a cloak 

That held concealed his conscious power, 
Till one bright day his genius broke 

From bud to flower. 

Then great men came and grasped his hand. 
And praised his work, and called him wise- 

And yet they could not understand 
His sudden rise. 

They reasoned — questioned thro' the dark — 
They marveled at his eminence; 



The Lute of Life 247 

They called his gift "a special mark 
Of Providence." 

He smiled — and quit their courtly hall; 

He strode into the midnight murk, 
And sighed, "The secret, after all, 

Is work, work, work." 



AN EPISTOLARY EXCHANGE 

[James Whitcomh Riley to James Newton Matthews, 
in answer to a letter on the anat- 
omy of the sonnet. '\ 

O-ho! ye sunny, sonnet-singin' vagrant, 

Flauntin' your simmer sangs in sic a weather! 

Ane maist can straik the bluebells and the heather 
Keekin' aboon the snaw, and bloomin' fragrant! 
Whiles you, ye whustlin' brither, sic a lay grant 

O' a' these janglin', wranglin' sweets thegither, 

I weel maun perk my ain doon-drappin' feather 
And pipe a wee: Tho' boisterous and flagrant 
The winds blaw whuzzle-whazzle rhymes that trickle 

Fra' afif my tongue less limpid than I'd ha'e them, 
I in their little music hap a mickle 

O' canty praises, a' askent to weigh them 
Agen your pride, and smile to see them tickle 

The warm nest o' the heart wherein I lay them. 

-J. W. R. 

Matthews' Repi,y 

I caught your cordial, wayward sonnet. 
To-day, while yet the dew was on it. 
And like a bee inside my bonnet. 

It keeps a-buzzin' 
Right merrily o' him that spun it. 

My rhymin' cousin. 



248 The Lute of Life 



Had it been born on Ettrick Hill, 

Or bloomed beside some Highland rill — 

Had it been ground in Burns's mill, 

It were not sweeter; 
The scent o' heather's round it still. 

In rhyme and metre. 

I wish my Muse would baud her bottle 
Somewhere between your nose and throttle. 
And catch a whiff o' something that '11 

Fire my fancy, 
And shake my shanks, and swell my wattle 

Wi' necromancy. 

But then, dear Jamie, ye 're nae saint, 

For a' my laudatory plaint; 

Ye 're but the rollic bard and quaint 

That Nature wove ye, 
Wi' just enough o' warl'ly taint 

To mak' us love ye. 

Good-night! fair end o' this epistle! 

If you can find a bane or gristle 

To whet your tooth on, sir, in this, I '11 

Think it kind. 
Good-night ! good-night ! I '11 wat my whistle. 

And shut the blind. 



THE END OF A WALK 

And now our pleasant walk must end ; 

The moon is down, and on the stream 
The midnight's cooling shadows blend 

In darker beauty o'er our dream ; 
Like baby hands, the tender flowers 

Are folded in a fairy sleep, 
O'ershadowed by the arching hours 

Of silence, where the ripples creep. 



The Lute of Life 249 



We, too, must rest. To-morrow's sun 

Will bring again the toil and strife, 
The daily duties to be done. 

And all the thronging ills of life ; 
The lovely day at last is gone, 

And soon the morning's beams will light 
The windows of the rising dawn. 

And we must part. Good-night! good-night! 

IN AN OLD GARDEN 

The pickets are down and the posts decayed 

That girdled the old garden plot, 
And rust gathers thick on the hoe and the spade, 

As they he in the grasses forgot; 
A green mold covers the rickety gate. 

Whose hinges are twisted in two, 
^"^ pilfering chickens stray, early and late, 

Where the carrot and cucumber grew. 

The walks are all gone, and the odorous bed 

Of the violets shines no more, 
And the desolate rag-weed lifts its head 

Where the pea-bloom nodded of yore; 
A cluster of catnip, here and there, 
. Or a straggling patch of thyme, 
Is all that is left of the garden fair 

As it was in the olden time. 

The fence is hidden by bramble and brier, 

Yet still on the south side grows 
A sunflower slim, whose eyes never tire 

As they follow the sun where he goes ; 
A lubberly toad in a garb of gray 

In the shade of a plantain feeds, 
While a hungry garter-snake slips away 

Through a jungle of jimson-weeds. 



250 The Lute of Life 

A desolate hollyhock lifts its lips 

To the mouth of a bumble-bee, 
And one lone centipede nibbles and nips 

The leaves of a wild-rose tree ; 
A bevy of cedar-birds swing all day 

On the mustard boughs, and sing 
Of many a summer that's passed away 

And many a vanished spring. 

And soon this garden that once was gay 

With the light of a thousand flowers, 
Will fade like a beautiful dream away 

From this mutable world of ours: 
Ah, life itself is a garden fine. 

And we the sowers of seeds, — 
'Tis ours to fill it with fruits divine 

Or ruin its soil with weeds. 



DR. STEPHEN J. YOUNG 

[Read at a banquet given by his fellow-physicians on 
the Hfty-iifth anniversary of his gradu- 
ation in medicine. \ 

Why come we here to-night ? No common call ; 
We see no shadows creeping on the wall — 

We hear no mufiled footfalls at the door, — 
No cries of anguish on our senses fall. 

No midnight consultation brings us here. 
We catch no lamentation — see no tear; 

No sombre silence shudders thro' the hall, 
Nor any faces pale with pain appear. 

Nay ! like a ring of roses overhead, 

The laughing lights their softest lustre shed 

Upon a Table Round of Brotherhood, 
As noble as the knights that Arthur led. 



The Lute o f Life 251 

And not unlike the knights of those old days, 
From far and near, we come to bind the bays 

Around the brows of our Sir Galahad, 
And star the chaplet with our pearls of praise. 

For in the lists of death he, too, hath fought 
The pagan multitudes, — he, too, hath brought 

A living glory from the purpling fields 
Where Liberty's sublimest work was wrought. 

And in the ranks of peace, what man hath won 
To nobler eminence by fair deeds done 

Within the humbler ways, where fell disease 
Insidiously her loathesome web hath spun? 

Not when wild bugles sang, and souls were stung 
To acts heroic, where the flag was flung, 

And men went down amid the madd'ning whirl 
Afrenzied, as the battle-hymns were sung; 

But groping in the world's dark avenues, 
Where sorrow stoops and poverty pursues, 

'Twas his, forsooth, to touch life's loos'ning strings 
And re-attune them to accustomed use. 

The promises Youth placed within his palm 
Age hath fulfilled, — and now the blessed calm 

Behind the storm is his, — and on his head 
The years are falling like a gracious balm. 

No more for him the troubled nights, — no more 
The loud alarm against his chamber-door. 

With visions of the dismal miles outspun 
Across the gloom, as in the times of yore. 

Not any call to-night will mar his rest, — 
The kind old head upon its pillow press'd 

Hath won a laureled respite; and no less 
Hath won a love for which a king might quest. 



252 The Lute of Life 

The knights of old, themselves foredoomed to fail, 
Gave praise when Galahad beheld the Grail; 

So, on the summit of a blameless life, 
Our comrade of the Table Round we hail. 

While we increasing labors still pursue, 

He rests from toil the tranquil seasons through, 

Cradled with memories supremely sweet. 
And comforted with love divinely true. 

Of all the pleasing pictures we behold. 
When days grow brief and winds of age blow cold. 
Nor poet's pen nor painter's brush hath wrought 
A fairer one than Honor growing old. 

A SENTIMENT 

Now let us stand, and, while the song is sung . 
Of "Auld Lang Syne" by every friendly tongue, 
Strike hands all round, and pledge ourselves to- 
night 
To live as worthily as Stephen Young. 

THE FLOOD 

The rain is on the window, and the mold 
Is on the ripening harvest, and the flood 
Is raging fearfully in field and wood 

And robing them with waters manifold; 

And helpless farmers shudder to behold 
The fretful demon lapping at their food 
With lips insatiate, pitiless, and rude. 

Like some gaunt wolf that ravages the fold. 
A cry for bread breaks from the bottom lands. 

From vales of penury and dales of pain ; 
And in the rivalry of reaching hands 

We read the world's response above the rain : 
Ah, Charity! sweet Charity! she stands 

With plenished palms stretched o'er the ruined plain. 



The Lute of Life 253 



NIGHTFALL 

The cricket winds his sultry horn 
At dusk beneath the cool gray stone, 
And from the windy marsh is blown 

The summer echoes through the corn. 

Amid the bending chestnut boughs 
The katydid, in Lincoln-green, 
At twilight takes his tambourine 

And sings all night beside the house. 

A breeze plays through the open door, 

And through the half-closed window-bars, 
And 'neath the wind-kissed moon and stars. 

Soft flakes of argent fleck the floor. 



WHEN I AM OLD 

When I am old, 
And pass into my dimmer days, 

To wither and repine, — 
Will ever minstrel wake my praise, 

Or lisp one lay of mine, — 
When my proud spirit's fires are cold, 
And I am old? 

When I am old, 
A riveled, wrinkled mass of mold, 

And on my cheerless hearth 
I heed no more my prattling fold 

Nor any sound of mirth, — 
Shall I to dust go unconsoled. 
When I am old? 

When I am old. 
And seek no more to garner gold, 
And o'er my sightless eyes 



254 The Lute of Life 



The lilies of the grave unfold 
Their petals to the skies, — 
Shall I be slighted, scorned, cajoled, 
When I arri old? 

When I am old, 
And like a sear leaf on the wold 

Tremble at every gale, — 
My deeds, will they be unextolled ; 

My loss, will none bewail, — 
Will Peace her just rewards withhold, 
When I am old? 



THE MYSTERY OF BARRINGTON MEADOWS 

Over the Barrington meadows a riderless steed. 
Whiter than moon-down mist, and swifter of speed 
Than a skirring swallow, cleaves the shimmering light, 
Ghostlike, galloping ever and on thro' the night. 

Up from the Barrington meadows a cold face peers 
For aye at the stars and the winds and the shifting 

years, 
While the low, perpetual sobs of a woman rim 
The night with an agony vague as a dream and dim. 

Over the Barrington meadows, and on to the morn, 
Go reeling the Bacchanal bats thro' the blasted corn, 
While a blood-red poppy bends in the moon and pleads 
All night for the soul of one lying stark in the reeds. 

Down in the Barrington meadows a dolorous rune 
Climbs up thro' the curling mist to the marble moon, 
And ever the girdling clouds and the curdling airs 
Are pale with the gibbering ghosts of unheard prayers. 

Down in the Barrington meadows a death-bird rings 
The ominous sky with the rush of invisible wings, — 



The Lute of Life 255 



And sibilant sighs from the shuddering grasses rise 
Like shrieks of the doomed at the bars of Paradise. 

Down in the Harrington meadows the flowers are 

nursed 
In the poisonous blood-wet loam of a land accursed, 
And rank as death is the pool at the root of the reed, 
Where drinks each night the wraith of the flying 

steed. 

Down in the Barrington meadows the snake's swift 

eyes 
Are hot in the tangled sedge where the dead man lies ; 
And beetles black as the slayer's soul, disport 
Over the crumbling palace where Life held court! 

Down in the Barrington meadows a swart lagoon 
Chafes under the guilty scowl of the pallid moon, 
And penitent lilies, drugged with the dew and slime, 
Quake with the conscious dread of a nameless crime. 

But the spectral steed flies on, and the night-rains beat 
Down on the crumpled heads of the ruined wheat, — 
And strong men start, aghast, with a stifled cry. 
When the wraithlike, horrible hoofs of the horse go by. 



THE ASHES OF SHELLEY 

Where is the soul, the life, the fire 

That lent its lustre to the lyre 

So brief a space ? Ah, whither strays 
That soul of liberty, whose days 

Were luminous with large desire? 

To what ethereal state retire 
Those passions, barbed with righteous ire, 
That set each trampled heart ablaze — 
Where is the soul? 



256 The Lute of Life 



Where, from the poet's funeral pyre, 
Escaped those virtues that inspire 
The tongue of never-tiring praise ; — 
And do the spirit's devious ways 
Converge to noble ends and higher, 
Where is the soul? 



SHAKESPEARE 

His soul was like a palace wrought of glass, 
Star-stained and many-sided, and full-fraught 
With all the fairest flowers of human thought, 

Outspread in one immeasurable mass, — 

A garden of enravishments, where pass 
The rapt creations that his fancy caught 
From realms of being hitherto unsought, 

Or feebly sought, or fruitlessly, alas! 

He peered through nature with a prophet's ken. 

He pierced her secrets with a poet's eye, — 

With passion, power, and high philosophy, 

He set the spirit's inner gates apart ; 

He stripped the shackles from the souls of men, 
And sacked the fortress of the human heart. 

The perfect model of the perfect mind ! 

Within the spheric fullness of his sense. 

Within his kingly soul's circumference, 
The image of the universe was shrined ; 
In lofty utterance his tongue outlined 

The golden orb of all intelligence; 

He touched the circle of omnipotence, 
Defining things no other e'er defined. 
God made but one ! the rack of centuries, 

The rolling chariot of resistless years. 

Leaves unbedimmed the amaranth he wears, — 
His fame is co-eternal with the skies. 
His words are fadeless as our memories. 

His influence as deathless as our tears. 



The Lute of Life 257 



M'CULLOUGH'S AUTOGRAPH 

[Near the close of John B. McCuUough's career, and 
after one of his most successful performances, 
while the applause of the audience was still thun- 
dering in his ears, a little girl handed him her au- 
tograph album, and he wrote therein this signifi- 
cant line: "Is it a voice, or nothing, answers me?"] 

"Is it a voice, or nothing, answers me?" 

Said John McCullough, as one night he stepped 
Down from the stage, while deaf'ning plaudits swept, 

From pit to dome, each crowded balcony; 

"Is it a voice, or nothing?" questioned he, — • 
And the hot currents of his life-blood leapt 
Responsive to the rising shouts that kept 

Surging around him like a boist'rous sea. 

The last act of life's tragedy, no doubt, 
That moment burst upon the actor's sight, 

And all the pride and vanity ebbed out 

From his lone heart, upon the deep'ning night, — 

And all the passion, all the hopes of years, 

That instant died, and left him to his tears. 



AN EXTRAVAGANT SIMILE 

The prairie, like a paper, lies unfolded at my feet — 

'Tis the Autumn's last edition — 'tis her illustrated 
sheet — 

"Nature's Quarterly !" I whisper, as my roving fancy 
reads 

The "gossip" of the golden-rods, the "chit-chat" of 
the weeds ; — 

The "poems" of the meadows, lying scattered here 
and there. 

The "stories" of the stubble, in full column every- 
where, — 

17 



258 The Lute of Life 



The "advertising" acres, and the "editorial" plots, 
And the "parenthetic" fences round the "paragraphic" 
lots. 

Each page is highly colored, and around the margin 

runs 
A forest, like a ribbon, stained with many summer 

suns ; — 
The "picture" of a village in the middle column lies, 
Whose tinted houses glimmer with at least a dozen 

dyes; 
And sprinkled o'er the pages, everywhere, in gold and 

green. 
The dwellings of the farmers, with their strawstacks 

in between; — 
'Tis a holiday edition, and I can not help but think 
It was stereotyped in Heaven, and God put on the 

ink. 



THE LITTLE GIRL THAT COULD NOT CRY 

As motionless as stone, and white 
As marble in the wan moonlight, 
She sat like one insculptured there, 
The midnight falling on her hair 
In lustrous folds. — She never stirred, 
Poor girl ! not even when she heard 
The lonely bells of Bethel toll 
The passing of her mother's soul: — 
She never wept — she only paled 
Like one whose springs of life had failed 
And left her spirit parched and dry— 
The little girl that could not cry. 

Hour after hour, her hot eyes burned 
Against a page she never turned, 
An open book, wherein she tried 
In vain her tearless face to hide; 
It were as if a bar of ice 



The Lute of Life 259 



Had bound her young blood like a vise — 

Had blocked and frozen every vein 

In lip and limb, in breast and brain, — 

And when the skies of April wept, 

She closer to the casement crept, 

And clutched her white throat with a sigh- 

The little girl that could not cry. 

The little girl that could not cry — 
They took her forth beneath the sky ; 
They led her here — they lured her there- 
They braided field-flowers for her hair; 
They told her stories — talked of birds 
And bees and blossoms, but their words 
Provoked not any tear or smile ; 
Her heart was dead : — and afterwhile 
The long-expected fever came 
And seared her body like a flame, 
And burnt her life out, by and by — 
The little girl that could not cry. 



AN INVOCATION 

Spirit of Mercy! draw near me, draw near me, 
Lean to me lovingly, com.fort and cheer me, — 
Hope have I none, if thou deign not to hear me. 

Spirit of Mercy ! encompass me, bless me. 

Close to thy bosom warm clasp me and press me. 

Clothe me with meekness — of sin dispossess me. 

Spirit of Mercy ! I reach to thee, cling to thee. 

All my transgressions I prayerfully bring to thee; — 

Humbly my hands, in my weakness, I wring to thee. 

Spirit of Mercy! uplift and uplead me, 

Up-tear from my pathway the snares that impede me, 

Sustain and support me whenever the need be. 



26o The Lute of Life 



Spirit of Mercy! of doubt disarray me, 

Dismantle my life of the lusts that dismay me, 

And strengthen my soul when temptations waylay me. 

Spirit of Mercy ! be nigh to me ever, 
Assist me — inspire me to higher endeavor — 
Forsake me and frown on me never — O never! 

Spirit of Mercy ! I kneel to thee, kneel to thee, 
Trusting, thro' darkness and discord, my weal to 

thee, — 
Queen of the Angels! thy sweetness unseal to me. 



THE FOOLISH MARINERS 

(l^OR THi: CHIIvDR^n) 

They set us afloat in a willow boat 

Upon a Northern sea. 
And we drifted on thro' dusk and dawn, 

As merry as men could be ; 
The air was white to left and right, 

And white was the air before, 
But behind our bark the world was dark. 

And we heard the kraken roar. 

As we passed the lair of the Polar bear 

We called aloud to him. 
And he came to the door, and sniffed and swore, 

And stroked his eyebrows grim, — 
Then buttoned his coat about his throat, 

And galloped along in our train 
So far and fast that he froze at last. 

And never got home again. 

iWe shook our fist at the fog and mist. 

All under the Arctic Zone, 
And sailed away, from day to day, 

So jolly and cold and lone, — 



The Lute of Life 261 



So jolly and cold, so free and bold, 

A curious sight were we, 
A-sailing away from day to day 

Upon the Northern sea. 

And roundabout and in and out, 

Wherever the breeze up-blew, 
With shout and song we swept along, 

An hundred summers through ; 
Yet day by day we all turned gray 

And skinny and grim and wild, — 
But the captain he, and the mate and me, 

We sat and smiled and smiled. 

I smiled at the mate, and the captain, straight, 

He grinned at the mate and me. 
And to lessen the weight we killed and ate 

The rest of the crew, you see ; 
Then the captain he grew fond of me, 

And I grew fond of the mate. 
And all together we killed each other, 

And ate and ate and ate. 

Now, barken here, my children dear, 

If ever you put to sea. 
Remember the mate, and the captain's fate. 

And the end that came to me; 
Bad luck to the day we sailed away 

In search of the Northern Pole, — 
My skeleton lies under Arctic skies, 

And the good Lord has my soul. 



EDISON 

Upon a time, at Menlo Park, 
A merry genius wrought 

Day after day, from dawn to dark. 
The cunning webs of thought ; 



262 The Lute of Life 



And as his nimble fancy drew 
The threads of doubt apart, 

Strange fabrics 'neath his fingers grew 
To wondrous forms of art. 

To words articulate he gave 

The wings of wider flight; 
He made the human voice his slave, 

And robbed the earth of night ; 
Of speech he caught the subtle sound, 

And treasured it so clear 
That dead men, lying underground, 

May still be talking here. 

The wizards of the elder age 

Have dwindled into naught 
Beside this later heritage. 

This Heracles of thought; 
With spider-energy he weaves 

The gossamers that bind,- 
Through every land, in richer sheaves, 

The hearts of all mankind. 



THE BURDEN OF BABYLON 

O Babylon, O Babylon! 
The Lord hath made His purpose known ; 
His anger, like a seething sea, 
Swells at thy gate, 
And Sodom's fate 
Alas, proud city, is reserved for thee. 

O Babylon, O Babylon! 
Soon, soon, thy glory shall be gone; 
Beneath thy godless roofs shall run 
E'en the warm blood 
Of motherhood, 
And none escape His vengeance — nay, not one ! 



The Lute of Life 263 



O Babylon, O Babylon! 
Never again as years go on 
Shall shepherds fold their flocks by thee; 
Nor Arab pitch 
His tent, nor hitch 
His camel by thy cool pomegranate tree. 

O Babylon, O Babylon! 
The winds shall o'er thy ruins moan; 
Within thy desolated halls 
Shall flit the owl. 
And wild beasts prowl. 
And dancing satyrs hold their carnivals. 



THE SOLDIER OF CASTILE 

It was afternoon in Madrid, during Isabella's reign, 
When Ristori was playing in the capital of Spain, 
That Nicholas Chapado, a Castilian soldier, lay 
Within a dungeon, doomed to die at breaking of the 

day;— 
A beardless boy and beautiful, with gentle voice and 

eye, 
For some offense of discipline a felon's death must 

die; 
No pleading sister's upturned face — no mother's fond 

appeal. 
No sweetheart's eloquence, could save the soldier of 

Castile ; 
And so a black-robed bellman, as the custom was, went 

down 
Collecting alms in all the streets and byways of the 

town, — 
Collecting alms to pay the priest to lift his voice on 

high 
In supplication for the soul of him who had to die. 



264 The Lute of Life 

The great Italian actress, standing at her window high, 
Saw the ghostly bellman ringing, and she turned and 

questioned "Why?" 
And when a Spanish cavalier responded with the tale, 
The listening woman shuddered and her cheeks grew 

chill and pale, 
Then, turning from the casement, where the sunlight 

softly fell, 
She saw no more the bellman and she heard no more 

the bell ; 
She only saw in fancy from a dungeon bare and gray 
A lad led forth to slaughter, at the breaking of the 

day — 
A brave boy rudely ushered from a prison's rime and 

rot 
To the sunshine of the city, for an instant, to be shot ; 
And her great heart sank within her, and her soul 

in sobs escaped, 
As she thought — the mimic empress — of the tragedies 

she aped. 

And now 't was night in Madrid, and the Zarzuela 

shone 
With oriental opulence, and splendor all its own; 
The bended balconies above blazed like a triple chain 
That belted in the beauty and the chivalry of Spain; 
Proud Isabella from her box looked out with haughty 

grace. 
While the passions of a race of kings were pulsing in 

her face ; 
Anon, amidst a clash of bells, and 'midst the crowd's 

acclaim. 
The pale Italian sorceress before the footlights came; 
A glory fell about her, as her tragic spirit played 
On the passions of the Spaniards, in their royal pomp 

arrayed ; 
She tranced them with her tenderness — she touched 

them as with steel — 
She broke a pathway to the coldest heart in old Castile. 



The Lute of Life 265 



'T was midnight, and the play was done— the closing 

curtain fell, 
And Ristori was kneeling at the feet of Isabelle— 
IvO ! the mimic queen was pleading witli an eloquence 

unknown, 
For Nicholas Chapado, to the queen upon the throne ; 
All motionless and silent stood the swarthy cavaliers, 
Their bosoms wrung with pity, as they leaned upon 

their spears ; 
'Twas the picture of a passion— 't was a priestess 

of her art. 
At the feet of Mercy kneeling, with her pleading lips 

apart ; 
'Twas a woman's heart appealing — 'twas resistless 

as the seas, 
Or the rushing North that hurtles down the snowy 

Pyrenees ; 
The haughty Queen was conquered — and that night 

the links of steel 
Fell, broken at her bidding, from the soldier of Castile. 



TO STEPHEN 

Ah, Stephen, my dear, with delight I recall 

The many glad moments we've spent. 
When Youth filled the bumper, and Fate kicked the 
ball, 

And Hope her sweet blandishments lent; 
'Twas a dream of ambition enticed us to toil 

In the vineyards of classical lore, — 
But Latin roots failed to take hold in the soil, 

And we voted old Euclid a bore. 

At college we gathered some facts by degrees, 

But the de'il a degree did we get; 
So we flew to our cups and went half-over-seas, 

On occasions we fain would forget; 
A crowd of gay fellows, aye, thronged at our board. 



266 The Lute of Life 

And loud rang the night with their glee, 
Till the wine cut them down, in great swaths, like a 
sword, 
Sparing only my comrade and me. 

There was Pollock of Vernon, and Charley the proud, 

And Alfred, the prince of them all; 
They have vanished away, like a dream or a cloud, 

And will gather no more at our call ; 
Ah, Stephen, again to the brim fill your glass, 

Let us drink to the days that are gone. 
To the cronies we loved, and each merry-eyed lass, 

In the jolly good times that have flown. 

Then luck to each other ! for bleak is the way. 

And rough is the road we must go ; 
The cart that we built, we must ride on to-day, 

And catch the rude blasts as they blow; 
So patch we at once every hole in our coat. 

And button our frocks to the chin. 
And take the grim hounds of bad luck by the throat, 

Ere the winter of life closes in. 



PLAINT OF THE PESSIMIST 

Life's but the magical web of a minute. 

And man but the tragical fly that's caught in it. 

For one flash of sunlight and one whiff of flowers. 
An seon of moonlight and midnight is ours. 

The good that we dare do will soon be forgot, 
But the guilt we are heir to abandons us not. 

Some will be foe to us, some will be friend. 
But evil will flow to us, down to life's end. 



The Lute of Life 267 

We toil till our fingers wear brittle, and find 

In the end there but lingers small peace for the mind. 

We seek El Doradoes of respite from pain, 

But our search 'mid the shadows that veil them is vain. 

We dream of bright gardens where rest is, but, nay! 
The hopeless soul hardens within its cold clay. 

We stand on a marge of a mighty endeavor. 
But never enlarge to our fullest — no, never! 

If joy were designed us, how seldom we rise 

From the troubles that bind us, to bask in its eyes. 

With weary palms reaching far out in the night. 
Our lips are beseeching in vain for more light. 

Our life is a riddle, unraveled, unkenned. 

With grief in the middle and groans at each end. 

From the crib to the cofifin we grope through the 

gloom. 
And our doubts trickle off in the trough of the tomb. 

When we're gone to the islands of night, none will 

weep 
In the shadow and silence that over us creep. 

On the hearth will the cricket his ditty still grate, 
And the thrush in the thicket bewail not our fate. 

Is the death we descend to as dreadful, as drear. 
As the fancies we lend to its terrors while here? 

Is the grave-worm more kind to the dead priest, I pray. 
Than the pagan, who, blind to the truth, went astray ? 



268 The Lute of Life 

On the road that upruns to the clouds from the clods, 
Shall we climb to the suns and the saints and the gods? 

If the Suicide's knives cut the cords of our cares, 
Do we not yield our lives to still sterner despairs? 

The back Atlantean sinks under the strain 
Of the sins that we see in this planet of pain. 

O Thou who hast made us so frail, unforgiving — 
Have mercy, persuade us that life is worth living. 



TO A BIRD ON THE TELEGRAPH WIRE 

O wild-bird sweet! 
What wonderful tidings are these, 
Flying under the palms of thy feet? 
Tell me, please, 
What news throbs under thy tremulous toes. 
Little bird, up there where the warm wind blows ? 

O blithe, brave bird ! 
What rumor of battle now speeds 
On the lip of the lightning weird? 
What startling deeds 
Done on the land or the sea, I pray, 
Are told by the wires to the world to-day? 

O beauteous bird, — 
Stealing the secrets that hourly stream 
Out of the heart of the world deep-stirred ! 
(Do I but dream, 
In fancying thee, little bird, the ghost 
Of some old message, love-sent and lost?) 



The Lute of Life 269 



O wild-bird sweet — 
Singing away in thy sapphire coat! 
Surely the song runs in at thy feet 
And out at thy throat, 
Thrilling the twittering tribes of the air 
With gossip and scandal from everywhere. 

O wretched bird! 
How sad must thy little heart be, 
Hearing of agonies yet unheard 
By all save thee, — 
Pecking the bulletins out of the wires 
When an empire falls or a king expires. 

O silent bird, — 
Musing alone on the mumbling line 
Till thy soul is sick and thy bright eyes 
With tears like mine, [blurred 

For a world grown foul with folly and sin 
And death, — as the years creep out and in. 

Sweet bird, away! 
Fly to the east — fly to the west — 
Fly to the uttermost verge of day; 
Fly! — nor rest 
Till the leaning lips of the desert kiss 
Each thought away of a race like this. 



A HINT OF OLD AGE 

They say that my mustache is gray, 

That I at last am getting old ; 
They hint that I have had my day. 

And that my heart is growing cold ; 
That in the circles of the young 

My ways are sadly out of place. 
That all the gladness of my tongue 

Is contradicted by my face. 



270 The Lute of Life 

Behind their fans the ladies smile, 

And with satiric glances say: 
"Was it at Luxor on the Nile 

They dug this mummy up, I pray?" 
And when to jest I fain would try, 

There falls a deep sepulchral gloom- 
A silence, broken by a sigh 

From some far corner of the room. 



TO MAURICE THOMPSON 

[/ should like to see the pollen of Earth's first flowers 
upon my shoes. — "Birds of the Rocks."] 

Bard of the wildwoods and the summer hours! 

Pray, why proclaimest thou a wish so fogy — 
"To see the pollen of Earth's primal flowers 

Down-pattering upon thy polished stoga"? 
O fie, Maurice! it puzzles me to know 
How very palaeozoic one can grow. 

Poet, I see thee in my fancy now, 
A million years before the Ages Classic, 

In ambush on some mountain's beetling brow, 
Hurling thine arrows at the birds Jurassic, 

Or meditating 'midst the rocks forlorn as 

The widowed offspring of an Ichthyornis. 

Methinks I see thee, with thy caudal ap- 
Pendage and thy skin mahogany, 

Proclaiming to the world with much clap-trap 
The infant art of ichthyophagy, 

Or, in a discourse wholly orniscopical, 

Presaging quail-on-toast in language tropical. 

Again, I hear thee poetizing in 

Numbers so sweet and megalophonous, 
The playful Pterodactyl shakes his fin 



The Lute of Life 271 

With intonations most segophonous, 
While Megatheriums their music mix 
With thine, and with the Archseopteryx. 

Spellbound I stand, list'ning with eager ear 
The pretty piping of thy notes ornithic, 

Until the present times, somehow, appear 
All intertangled with the times pre-mythic — 

Until, in fact, I have a vague suspicion 

That tail-suspension is our true position. 

O thou who wouldst with archseologic lore 
Inspire our fancies and illumine us, 

Pardon me, if too rashly I explore 
Thy genealogy quadrumanous. 

And find within the prehistoric chasm 

A monkey floating in thy protoplasm. 



PATRICK HENRY CRONIN 

(murdered in CHICAGO, MAY 4, 1889) 

He was my friend ! To-night I sit 
And think of him whose sad fate stirs 
The pity of two hemispheres 

With horror, as they speak of it. 

He was my friend! In other years 
I hailed him as a soul refined, 
A college brother, brave and kind. 

Impulsive, tender, quick to tears. 

Poor man! He stood upon the side 
Of justice, with the feeble few, 
Who, having tried him, found him true 

And fearless — and for this he died. 

All lamblike to the slaughter-pen 
They lured him with the lying cry 



272 The Lute o£ Life 

Of mercy — led him forth to die, 
At midnight, in the dragon's den. 

Another victim of the bold, 

Unblushing vallainy that waits. 
Red-handed, at old Erin's gates. 

And barters Irish blood for gold. 

The whole world's hot, indignant eyes 
Are fixed on this, the foulest crime 
Recorded in our land and time — 

A deed whose horror multiplies. 

O fair-famed city of the lake, 

Awake, and let not any stain 

Of this last butchery remain 
On thy white garments, for God's sake. 

O Justice, with thy lightning smite 
The few or many — high or low — 
Who dealt, or who inspired the blow 

That stunned the Christian world that night. 



CONTRADICTION 

I know a girl whose lip denies 
The love that sparkles in her eyes, — 
Whose harshest words to music dance 
If but accompanied by her glance ; 
A girl whose heart, against her will. 
In her dark orbs is pleading still ; 
Who can not hide, tho' hard she try. 
The wooing language of her eye. 

How strange a fate is this we see. 
When lips and eyes no more agree ! 
When softest glances dull the dart 
Of bitterness that words impart; 



The Lute of Life 273 

And yet, were I the trembling swain 
That languished in this girl's disdain, 
No hope within my breast would die 
While love stood laughing in her eye. 



MY MUSE 

Not in the crowded mart and sordid street, 

I seek communion with the Lyric Muse; 
Not in cathedral walls, with sandaled feet, 

Where organs pipe their melodies abstruse. 
And surpliced priests their hollow altars beat 

With maledictions poured upon the Jews; 
Not in the pit where guilty pleasures meet 

To proffer vanity her nightly dues, 
But rather in the rippling fields of wheat 

And in the windy meadow-lands, I choose 
To chase the footsteps of the damsel fleet 

And win her graces with some happy ruse; 
O, I would woo her as a lover wooes, 

With soul persistent and with sapphic heat, 
Till, drunk with kisses, she could not refuse 

To breathe into my strain her spirit sweet. 



MY NAMESAKE 

[A song to the son of my poet-friend, Alonzo H. 
Davis, of Omaha.] 

A strangely tender feeling stirs 

My bosom when I think of him, 
Who knows me not, and little cares 

If I be Jack or Jill or Jim; 

In dreams, I let him splash and swim, 
In lakes of love, around my knee, 

Nor deign to cross his slightest whim — 
The boy Lon Davis named for me. 
18 



274 The Lute of Life 

O, if his eyes be blue or black 

Or brown — I care not anything; 
If any courtliness he lack, 

It matters not — he is my king! 

For him I seize my harp and sing — 
I bide his will, whate'er it be, 

And staunchly to his standard cling — 
The boy Lon Davis named for me. 

Come, fill a bumper to the brim 

To him, high-priest of bibs and toys — 
Come, join a health with Uncle Jim 

To that crown-prince of baby boys ; 

From Omaha to Illinois 
We '11 flute his praises full and free, 

Till he on honor's height shall poise — 
The boy Lon Davis named for me. 



TO THEOPHILUS VAN DERAN 

O silent partner in the House of Fame, 
Theophilus! I venerate thy name, — 
Thy name, itself the mirror of thy mind, 
God-lover, and the lover of mankind ! 
Happy art thou, among thy flocks and fields, 

Gray pilgrim of Parnassus ! piping still 
With all the potency experience yields 

To poet-passion touched with native skill. 

Two gifts alone I envy thee, old man. 
Thy peace idyllic, and — ^the pipe of Pan! 
And gladly would I share thy snowy age 
Could I claim, too, thy soul's bright heritage. 
Thy life has been the life of one inspired, 

A cycle of soft nights and sunny days, — 
Far from the turmoil of the world retired, 

Alike unconscious if it blame or praise. 



The Lute of Life 275 



Van Derail! ere the sable angel drips 
The dews of death upon thy lids and lips, 
I fain would trace, with all the skill I can, 
]\Iy high regard for thee as bard and man. 
Thine is the poet's doom ! To live unknown. 

To charm the world a season, and to die — 
To sink in slumber by the wayside stone. 

Forgotten, as the trampling tribes go by. 



SONNETS TO THE RH'ER W- 

YESTERDAY 



Out from the shadow-land a river came, 
Long, long ago. a river fair and fleet. 
Thro' many a mazy glen and dim retreat. 

And many a haunted wild, whose Indian name 

Flashed on our fancy like a subtle flnmo. 

In those far days of boyhood, when our feet 
Fled twinkling down the sunburnt sautls to meet 

The rushing waters that no hand could tame. 

The never-ending summers o'er us blew 
A breath of Eden, and the days were long ; 
"A boy's will is the wind's will." saith the song. 

And all things, then, in mellow glory grew ; 
Love's face lay warm against the wooing lip 
Of Nature in that first companionship. 

TO-DAY 

Still flows the river, but the shadow-land 
Long, long ago has vanished, and no more 
The darkling wild and fairy-haunted shore 

Before our visions blossom and expand ; 

Only a coiling reach of wrinkled sand. 
A treeless streaiu — an emi>ty dream of yore — 
No more, no more, the birds of morning pour 

Their songs along the summer-kirtled strand. 



276 The Lute of Life 

The hills grow dark, and dark the after-days 
To us who linger out the lonesome years; 
In vain we wander down the vales to find 
The golden dawns and old familiar ways 
That knew not any stress of toils nor tears, 
Nor any voice, in all the world, unkind. 



WHEN REUBEN WAS MY BEAU • 
(an idyl of thanksgiving) 

Yes, I was but a little tot of fifteen years or so, 

A rosy, romping country girl, and Reuben was my 
beau, — 

My first and only sweetheart, whose father's farm 
and ours 

Shook hands across a shady lane between two fields 
of flowers; — 

And we were wayward as the winds that wandered 
o'er the wild. 

For Reuben was an only son and I an only child, — 

And our truant spirits twinkled with a temper so in- 
tense 

We were ever quick to quarrel, as a natural conse- 
quence : 

We wrangled every morning on the road to school, 
and then 

At evening by the pasture bars we made it up again : — 

O, the skies were bright as banners spread above us, 
long ago, 

And everything was beautiful — when Reuben was my 
beau. 

The summers wafted o'er the hills like strains of music 

blown 
From fairy lips in fairy-land, and all the world was 

sown 
With syllables of laughter, intermingled everywhere 



The Lute of Life 277 

With the trill of birds and fluttering of pinions down 

the air. 
The nights were soft and starry as the dreams that 

drifted through 
The gateways of my girlish heart when loving yet was 

new, — 
When life was so^enchanting, so entrancing to my eye, 
I saw no shadow on the earth, no cloud in all the sky ; 
My hopes were as the morning ere the dew was kissed 

away, 
Nor any trace of trouble ever darkened on my day ; 
One thought alone possessed my heart, wherever I 

might go, — 
One sweet, delicious dream of love, when Reuben was 

my beau. 

And so the rosy months ran by, until a dreadful day 
Broke on the world, and all the gold of life was turned 

to gray ;— 
A dull Thanksgiving morning laid its dim light at our 

door, 
When Reuben came up, glowing, in a garb unworn 

before, 
With strange bright buttons on his breast, like little 

moons and stars. 
While at his elbows and his wrists were braided bands 

and bars, 
And all his form, from head to foot, was clad in deep- 
est blue. 
Ah, me! I sighed and shivered there, in silence, for 

I knew 
The breath of war had wooed him, as the bravest then 

were wooed. 
And had fanned to flame the fervor of his hot, heroic 

blood ; — 
A clasp of hands — a clinging kiss — and then a night 

of woe 
Fell on me like the wing of death — for Reuben was 

my beau. 



278 The Lute of Life 

The years are many since that morn, and I am grow- 
ing gray ; 

For me the bells are welcoming their last Thanks- 
giving Day; 

The fire of life within my breast has almost ceased 
to burn, 

And I shall never live to see the dreary day return. 

The rain is falling on the fields — the dull November 
rain — 

And on a martyr's nameless grave, where all my hopes 
are lain; 

Far, far from here, in some strange land, beneath 
the Southern pine, 

They laid the ashes that were his — the dead heart that 
was mine. 

The shady lane still runs between his father's farm 
and ours, 

But the fields lie cold against the winds, and vanished 
are the flowers. 

Sometimes I drive the cows home from the pasture 
bars below, 

And I live again the dear old days when Reuben was 
my beau. 



A VALENTINE 

Tho' hill and vale with music ring. 
And mating birds be on the wing, 
To-day I have no heart to sing, — 
My Margerie no longer hears. 
She smiles not now, nor heeds my tears. 
She wakes not with the waking spring. 
She comes not with returning years. 

As sink the snow-flakes in the sea, 
Loved Margerie, lost Margerie, 
My thoughts concenter all in thee; 
To-day the softest, subtlest note 



The Lute of Life 279 

That trembles from the throstle's throat, 
Stirs not the slightest pulse in me, — 
My dreams are of a day remote. 

The lute lies silent on my knee, 

I touch no more the trembling key 

That thrilled the heart of Margerie; 
Those eyes where truth and passion met, 
Love's planets, in the grave have set, 

And left this heritage to me, 
A memory — a fond regret. 



AT STORM LAKE 

O the summer days at Storm Lake, 

Like dreams they follow mc. 
And taunt me with the beauty 

Of a time no more to be; 
O dewy days that blossomed 

In the garden of the past. 
And died away in melody 

Too exquisite to last! 
O rosy days, still whispering 

Of joys that glittered by. 
When the warbling waters listened 

To the wooing of the sky. 
When the climbing vines were garmented 

In gowns of living green, 
And the fickle fountains dallied 

With the flowers in between — 
At Storm Lake. 

O the summer nights at Storm Lake — 

They hover round my heart 
Like a troop of fairy visitants, 

Reluctant to depart; 



28o The Lute of Life 

They carol of the starHght, 

And mingle their refrain 
With the old caressing cadence 

Of a stroll in Lover's Lane; 
They babble to my memory 

Of silver sails that fled 
Like dreams across the waters, 

When the moon was overhead; 
Ah, they sing across the silences, 

This dreary winter day. 
Of the tenderness and splendor 

Of the summer flown away — 
At Storm Lake. 

the^ summer-time at Storm Lake — 
It rises to my eyes 

Like a half-remembered legend 

Of a day in Paradise; 
It quivers in my fancy 

So deliriously sweet, 
That it crumbles into odors 

Of remembrance at my feet; 
And often in my daily toils, 

And in my nightly dreams, 

1 wander back to Storm Lake, 
Where the mellow moonlight beams. 

And hear again from laughing lips. 
And read in laughing eyes. 

The story that is ever sweet. 
Though not forever wise. 
At Storm Lake. 



JOHN PETTIJOHN 

John Pettijohn! John Pettijohn! 
No matter how the years go on — ■ 
No matter how Old Time shall trace 
His furrows on your honest face — 



The Lute of Life 281 



No matter how your eyes may pale, 
Your strength of body faint and fail. 
Your heart, thick-lined with love's own gold, 
Can not grow old — can not grow old. 

John Pettijohn! John Pettijohn! 
You stand against the falling sun 
Like some o'er-towering pine, that turns 
The lightning when the hot bolt burns 
A path of death along the land, — 
Unscathed amidst the storm you stand. 
Truth's image, lordly to behold — 
God's favorite, who ne'er grows old. 

John Pettijohn! John Pettijohn! 
To-day we speak your praise alone; 
Not any knight of Arthur's time. 
Nor any king of any clime. 
Can stir the soul to song like you, 
0_ priest of Honor, tried and true, — 
Like you, who, as the years blow cold. 
Can grow not old — can grow not old. 

John Pettijohn! John Pettijohn! 
God shield you till the race be run, — 
Around you like a wall of fire 
We stand, to reverence and admire; 
We wait your bidding — ready still 
To drink your wisdom, do your will, — 
Still hoping, as the years unfold. 
The heart we love will not grow old. 



THE DEATH OF THE BABY 

Like a bird flying out of its prison, 

Light-winged and alone. 
The soul of wee Robbie is risen. 

And heavenward flown. 



282 The Lute of Life 



Flown heavenward out of its anguish, 

Sweet motherless one! 
Flown heavenward never to languish 

As time weareth on. 

As out of a lily's pale chalice 

The odor is blown, 
So, forth from the soul's snowy palace 

The life-light is gone. 

As soft as the tinges of twilight 

Out-fade from the west, 
The baby sank into the skylight 

Of infinite rest. 

No longer his pink baby-fingers 

Outrival the flowers. 
No longer his baby-laugh lingers 

And melts into ours. 

The cradle is empty and hollow 

Forever and aye, 
The flight of wee Robbie we'll follow 

When beckoned away. 

SHE SLEEPS 

'T was summer's noon ! One I had known 

Lay stark upon her lily bed; 
And one I knew not, wept alone 

Beside the lady lying dead; — 
The lady with the long brown hair. 

And lucent eyes of Heaven's own blue, — 
A lady fair and dehonaire 

As e'er was given man to woo. 

He wept for eyes that ne'er again 

Would lift their love-light to his own — 

His tears fell like the autumn rain'. 
O'er days of joy forever flown; 



The Lute of Life 283 

He wept as one might weep who stands 

Outside the pale of Paradise, 
When some sweet saint with pleading hands 

Floats, dreamlike, o'er his tranced eyes. 

He wept the tender heart and true. 

That fell to dust before his eye — 
He wept as knightly spirits do. 

O'er all the beauty that can die ; 
He wept to hear his orphans cry 

Amid the gloom the long night through, — 
He wept until his soul was dry, 

Then slept — and woke to weep anew. 

And in and out the people drew. 

And much they marveled — much they praised 
The lady's loveliness, whereto 

Death's awful signet had been placed; 
And kinsmen from the fair land round 

Came in with weeping lids and lips. 
And round the marble mother bound 

Their garlands, — love's Apocalypse ! 

She's gone into the silent land. 

She's faded from this world of ours, — 
Where summer's golden skies expand, 

She's folded in a realm of flowers; 
She sleeps — the fair young mother sleeps, — 

No words of ours, no cries, no tears. 
Can pierce the dull grave's gloomy deeps, 

Thro' all the intervital years. 

She sleeps, — ^nor any dreams hath she, — 

The tides may ebb, the tides may flow ; 
Where once she was, she ne'er can be, 

While round the world the wild winds blow; 
She sleeps — God rest her where she lies! 

Until the gates of dawn unbar. 
Then give her spirit strength to rise 

To life in some sublimer star! 



284 The Lute of Life 



UPON HER WRIST 

Upon her wrist a pea-green parrot sways, 
Pecking her pearly finger-tips, the while 
Her proud mouth quivers like a tropic isle 

Round which a summer-sea of passion plays. 

Poor Polly! if my idle tongue betrays 
A trace of envy at thy happy lot, 
O be the fault forgiven and forgot, 

For tranced are the mortal eyes that gaze 
Upon her wrist. 

Upon that warm white pillar of desire. 
Chaster than unstained marble, still abide, 
O pea-green babbler, at my lady's side. 
Nor ever of her gracious presence tire, — 
Be thou, fond bird, the live and echoing lyre 
Upon her wrist. 



A LEAVE-TAKING 

To-night, I leave her. 

Fast asleep she lies. 

How soft her breathing — how divinely fair — 

How pure against her snowy pillow, there — 
How like a goddess with sweet, sealed eyes, 
She sleeps, unconscious of the destinies 

That hide within the dull gold of her hair! 

To-night, I leave. 

To-morrow, she will wear 
Upon her swanlike throat a scarf of sighs. 

Once, how I loved her! loved the very grass 
Whose velvet cushioned her caressing feet; — 
But now, just as the night and morning meet. 
My faith — my hope is shattered like a glass. 
And from the wreck my bleeding heart must pass, 

Farewell I farewell ! — the ruin is complete ! 



The Lute of Life 285 

O BLEAK IS THE NIGHT 
(song) 

O bleak is the night 

That is shorn of its stars, 
And cold is the heart 

That is chastened with scars; 
But bleaker and colder 

Than everything- yet, 
Is the love-plundered bosom 

That can not forget. 

The bright crystal dews 

That o'er-sprinkle the lawn, 
Slip back into mist 

At the touch of the dawn, — 
But the lover low-chained 

To the rack of regret 
Must languish in pain, 

For he can not forget. 

White sails of the ocean 

Grow dingy on shore, 
But brighten again 

As they sweep the seas o'er ; 
Not so the fond eyes 

With love's hopelessness wet — 
The heart never lightens 

That can not forget. 

The visions of terror 

That haunt us by night, 
Like shadows take wing 

At the first flush of light ; 
But the breast of despair 

Still in anguish must fret. 
For the curse is upon it — 

It can not forget. 



286 The Lute of Life 



AT CHRISTMAS EVE 

O wind of December! 

Blow high ! blow low ! 
Blow out of the north — blow over the snow ! 

Blow ! Blow ! 
Blow out of the east — blow out of the west — 
Blow over the hills by the cuckoo's nest! 
Blow, O wind, as you used to blow 

In the wild, white night 

Of a boy's delight, 
In the Christmas-time of the Long Ago! 

O fire of December, 

Glimmer and glow ! 
Burn like the heart of a boy I know- 
Burn ! burn ! 
Burn till the pippins burst, and then 
Burn till the pop-corn fills the pan! 
Burn, O fire, till the midnight chime 

Shall beckon to bed 

Each golden head, 
To dream the dreams of the Christmas-time ! 



AN OPEN WINTER 

The warm winds are blowing, 
The streams are still flowing, — 
The grass is scarce dead yet, 
The birds have not fled yet, 
And winter is going. 

In the gray of the hollow 
Still lingers the swallow, — • 
And sheep-bells are tinkling 
Where soft rains are sprinkling 
O'er forest and fallow. 



The Lute of Life 287 

The blue-flies still cling to 
The pane, as they sing to 
The raindrops descending, 
And dancing and blending, 
In glee of the spring, too. 

Half-hid under cover 
Of sedge-grass, the plover 
Sits patiently patching 
Her wardrobe, and watching 
The clouds flying over. 

No sleeting — no snowing, 
No keen blizzards blowing, — 
No raging — no riot 
Of nature, — all 's quiet ! 
And winter is going. 



WHERE WILLIE WAS 

Where Willie was, the daylight dies. 

And deathlike silence overlies 

The greensward and the garden, where 
His baby feet once, brown and bare, 

Went pattering under summer skies. 

Now stilled for aye the childish cries, 
And hushed the tender lullabies 
A mother sang, at twilight, there, 
Where Willie was. 

And I — I marvel if those eyes. 
Unsealed in yonder Paradise, 

Look, ever, down the shining stair 

Upon the little empty chair 
And scattered playthings that we prize, 
Where Willie was. 



288 The Lute of Life 



TO NATURE 

With thee, O Mother Nature, let me bide 
A little space; I ask but only this, 
To feel upon my face thy faintest kiss; 
To hold my palm in thine, nor be denied 
The touch that makes a sad soul satisfied, 
Nor any joyance in thy heart that is : — 
Let me, one fleeting moment, share thy bliss, 
In tongueless transport, nestling at thy side, 
There let the mad world beckon as it will — 
In thy warm clasp, in thy serenest smiles, 
I anchor all my cares, and so forget 
The sombre road that shimmers up the hill, 
Flint-fretted, thro' the link'd and lonesome miles. 
To where the tired stars in glory set. 



THE ENCHANTED POOL 

My soul is an enchanted pool. 

Round whose dim marge the fairies flit 
By moonlight, when the night is cool 

And silence overhangeth it. 

They thither throng in twinkling ranks, 
Half-clad, as to an elfin wake, — 

They revel on the dewy banks 
That slope unto the mimic lake. 

They leap adown the darkling strand, 
They dip into the dusky waves — ■ 

They glimmer round the haunted land. 
Like ghosts o'er long-forgotten graves. 

Their images are nightly glassed 
Upon the waters dim and deep, — 

Alas! the fickle water hast 
No power their subtle charms to keep. 



The Lute of Life 289 

O, some have features sweet and fair, 
With lips that laugh, and starry eyes, — 

And some a withered aspect wear. 
In whom no trace of beauty lies. 

And some — ah, some have faces known 
In other times, in alien spheres, — 

Their airy forms are backward blown 
By night across the flood of years. 

At times, when all the land is mute, 
Some boat with elfin sail or oar 

Across the phantom lake doth shoot, 
And vanish to the farther shore. 

And oft adown the waters pour 

The fragments of some wondrous song. 

Heard only once, and heard no more. 
In all the world, a whole life long. 

My soul is an enchanted pool, 

Round whose dim marge the fairies flit 

By moonlight, when the night is cool 
And silence overhangeth it. 



THE GARDEN OF LOVE 

"O, where is the Garden of Love?" I said 
To a frail old man as he passed me by; 
He paused a moment with bended head. 
Then turned his face, and his eyes were red, 
As he pointed up to the summer sky. 

"O, where is the Garden of Love?" I cried 

To a skeptic bold, in a mood profound; 
A smile of cynical scorn and pride 
Played over his brow as he replied 

By pointing straight to the frozen ground. 

19 



290 The Lute of Life 

"O, where is the Garden of Love?" said I, 
To a youth who sat in a cloud of sighs; 
The blood pulsed up with a ruddy dye 
To his pallid face, and he made reply 
By pointing swift to a sweet girl's eyes. 

"O, where is the Garden of Love?" I spoke, 
To a warrior bold with a battered shield ; 
He parted the folds of his martial cloak, 
And pointed away, with a careless joke. 
To the crimson slopes of a battle-field. 

"O, where is the Garden of Love?" I sighed, 

To a slender girl with a drooping head; 
She stood by the brink of a turbid tide 
Where the March winds blew, and the maid replied 
By glancing down at the river's bed. 

"O, where is the Garden of Love, good dame?" 

I asked a mother in accents mild; 
She shivered, and wept, and a blood-red flame 
Went over her cheek, as she called the name 

And kissed the lips of her dying child. 

For the Garden of Love I search no more. 

In the Earth below nor the Heaven above; 
'T is not on a far-off fabled shore, 
With golden walls and a diamond door; — 
Where the heart is, there 's the Garden of Love. 



THE DOVES 

There 's something in the far-oflf coo 
Of twilight-nesting doves, that thrills 

My listening spirit through and through, 
Out here among the lonesome hills: — 

What is it? Something half divine, 
A patient, pleading undertone 



The Lute of Life 291 

Of pathos I can ne'er define, 
Of passion kindred to my own. 

A sound subduing and subdued, 

A sinking strain that swoons and dies 
Amidst the melancholy wood, 

What time the tristful cricket cries : — 
No piping skylarks, sphered with blue, 

Nor linnets down the lanes of musk, 
Can bead my dreaming eyes with dew. 

Like those low-crooning doves of dusk. 

When, at God's bidding, every bird 

Flew thither, eager to receive 
Its own sweet song, all Eden stirred 

To welcome them, that summer eve; 
And all were jubilant and gay, 

Save one, who never shared their mirth. 
The turtle-dove, who turned away. 

And learned the saddest song on earth. 

And this alone is why I love 

Its plaintive, pleading voice the best, — 
Earth's anguish grieves the tender dove 

And breaks to music in its breast; — 
When fields grow dusk, and waters dim, 

How sweet to wander forth alone. 
And hear, far down the wood's dark rim, 

The drowsy doves of twilight moan. 



A"^ MAXINKUCKEE 

Of Cashmere vale (see Lalla Rookh!) 

Tom Moore has sung in numbers lucky. 
Yet never bard in any book 
Has wreathed in rhyme a sweeter nook 
Than Maxinkuckee. 



292 The Lute of Life 

The greenliest of Northern lakes, 

She smiles serene as some sultana, 
And all her dimpled beauty wakes 
To music when the moonlight breaks 
O'er Indiana. 

The tresses of her comely trees 
Are rippled into coy disorder 
Before the dalliance of the breeze 
That kneels at Maxinkuckee's knees 
And leans toward her. 

The days come down in courtly file, 

Arrayed in ranks of living splendor, 
As fair as those that used to smile 
When Scotland's king sought Ellen's Isle 
In transport tender. 

The lances of the summer noon 

Are tempered by the light winds blowing,— 
And when the twilight leads the moon 
Along the wave, the heart of June 
Seems overflowing. 

By Maxinkuckee's magic shore. 

When darkness o'er the blue lake closes, 
Is heard the dip of many an oar 
Amidst a thousand lights that pour 
Their rays, like roses. 

Let Venice boast her gondoliers. 

Her brawny boatmen, proud and plucky, — 
Have we not arms as strong as fheirs, 
And loving hearts as true as hers, 
At Maxinkuckee? 

Let Germans dream beside the Rhine, 

And Spaniards by the Guadalquivir, — 
We crave no fairer scenes than thine. 



The Lute of Life 293 

Sweet lake, whose laughing waters shine. 
Love-lit, forever. 

A toast we pledge to all the West, 

From Canada to old Kentucky: — 
"May he who roams in search of rest, 
Take heed, and end the weary quest 
At Maxinkuckee." 



A REFLECTION 

To-day is ours, to-morrow God's; and this 
Is all of life we know. Helpless we stand 
Beside the straits of Time; on either hand 

An ocean infinite as the abyss 

Between a past day and a day that is. 
Beneath our feet the ever-sliding sand 
Down-sweeps us, struggling, to the starless strand 

Where billows rock and blinding sea-winds hiss. 

Why vex our souls with vain similitudes 
Of life, which, ere we can discern it, slips 
From out the harbor, like a dream of ships, 

Half-freighted, to the alien solitudes, 

The home of silence, where the long night broods. 
And Time sinks, breathless, 'neath the vast eclipse? 



MEADOWS OF GOLD 

Meadows of ..gold, — 

Rolling and reeling a-west! 
Ye clasp and hold 

The milk of the world in your breast. 
Ye are the nurses who clutch 
The ladles of life, and touch 
The lips that famish and burn 
In agony cruel and stern, ' 



294 The Lute of Life 



Meadows of gold, — 

Reaching and running away, 
Shod with the mold, 

And crowned with the light of the day! 
Ye are the chemists of earth, 
The wizards- who waken to birth 
The violets blue, and buttercups, too. 
Under the dark and the dew. 

Meadows of gold, — 

Winding and wending along. 
Fair to behold, 

And merry and mellow with song! 
Ye are the poets whose chimes 
Are rung by the reapers — whose rhymes 
Are written in windrows of grass 
By musical sickles that pass ! 

Meadows of gold, — 

Laughing and leaping afar. 
Fast in your fold 

Forever the beautiful are! 
Ye are the Hebes who dip. 
And lift from the loam to the lip, 
The nectar whose plethoric flood 
Is tinted and turned into blood. 



A RAINLESS APRIL 

(in ILLINOIS) 

No rain, no dew, no vapor. High and bright. 
The sun climbs up and over, and the sky 
Is one vast pearl. .• . . Day after day goes by, 

Green-kirtled, flinging blossoms left and right; 

The prairie fires are crackling, and the night 

Is ribboned round with flame — while from the dry, 
Fire-eaten fields the frightened wild-birds fly, 

Before the burnt hinds, in bewildered flight. 



The Lute of Life 295 

As when a strong man stands beside the dead, 
Blanched with unutterable woe — and tears 

Come not to soften and subdue his pain — 

So April at the Winter's low death-bed 
Kneels quiveringly down, nor ever hears 

The pleasing patter of the tearful rain. 



THE DYING BUTTERFLY 

And so, my little Gay Wing, 

You're still at last; 
Your days of dallying, 

Like mine, are past. 

As listlessly you lie 

There in the sun, 
Somehow, I feel that 1, 

Too, am undone. 

You spent one blissful hour, 

My butterfly. 
Flitting from flower to flower- 

And did not I? 

Our hearts were light, my dear. 

And knew not love ; 
Whatever joy came near. 

We sipped thereof. 

I was a type of you. 

As you of me — 
Twins of the light and dew, 

Ever, were we. 

Nothing we knew of grief, 

Under the sky; 
Bright was our life, but brief. 

My butterfly. 



296 The Lute of Life 

As you in the dust lie prone 
Under autumn skies. 

It is I, and I alone, 
Can sympathize. 

Now that the lights are low 
And the play is done, 

'Tis time that I, too, go 
To rest, dear one. 

For us no tear will fall, 

As days go by — 
Men knew us not at all, 

My butterfly. 



LADY LAURA IN THE NORTH 

Lady Laura, in the North, 

Leaning at her lattice high, 
Lingeringly looking forth, 

Saw the wild swan southward fly,- 
Heard afar the clanging cranes, 

Sweeping from the fields of snow 
To the sunlit summer plains 

Where the warm magnolias blow. 

Lady Laura, looking south. 

Trembled like an aspen-leaf, 
While around her perfect mouth 

Crept the early curves of grief; 
All her life seemed but a ring 

Of remembrance and regret. 
As she stood there quivering 

Like a wind-swayed violet. 

Lady Laura, lily-tall, 

Standing at her casement high, 
Saw the evening shadows fall, 



The Lute of Life 297 

Saw the wild-birds homeward fly ; — 
But she spake not any word, 

Staring hard against the sky, — 
Never any sound she heard 

Of the loud world rolling by. 

Lady Laura, leaning there, 

Lonely, in a land forlorn, 
Saw a child with sunny hair 

Rise beyond the clouded corn; — 
Fell her tears like autumn rain 

As she thought of one dark day 
And a warrior lying slain 

On the banks of Mobile Bay. 

Lady Laura — she is gone! 

Lonely is that lattice high, — 
Still forever flies the swan. 

Still the clanging cranes go by; 
In the North a wanderer 

Clutches for a vanished hand; 
Desolate idolater, — 

He can never understand. 



THE SONNET 

There is delight in singing, though none hear 
Beside the singer. 

— WAiyTEjR Savage Landor. 

To sit in midnight solitude, and trace 
A twining sonnet through its maziness 
Of subtle melody and sweet excess 

Of rhymes recurrent, and to keep in pace 

With its elastic feet and flexile grace, 

To me is pleasure more than one can guess 
Who drawls it with disinterestedness 

When daylight dips the world into his face. 



298 The Lute of Life 



I love the sonnet's very ebb and flow, 

Its short, swift motion — its impetuous dash 
Against the sestet, and its slow rebound ; — 
Like wind-whipped billows that to landward go, 
It leaps along beneath the master's lash, 
Till beaten backward like a baffled hound. 



AT MILKING TIME 

At milking time, when shadows climb 
The pasture-bars, and sheep-bells chime 
High up along the sunset hill, — 
'Tis sweet to wander where we will, 
And take no thought of care or time. 

The heart of boyhood in its prime 
Lights up with joy the cheek of grime, 
When katydids come out and trill. 
At milking time. 

There's not in any land or clime 
An hour so sacred, so sublime. 
As that when patient kine distill 
The wines of Hfe, in many a rill 
Of rippling and resilient rhyme, 
At milking time. 



THE OLD MAJOR SPEAKS 

Long, long has been the journey, but the end is draw- 
ing near. 

We started out at dawn, good wife, and now the dusk 
is here ; 

Long, long has been the journey that our weary feet 
have made. 

And the hopes we held the dearest, at the dawning, 
have decayed; 



The Lute of Life 299 

A storm came up the valley as we crossed the Great 

Divide, 
And two who traveled with us, then, fell stricken at 

our side — 
Fell, shivered in the blast of death that round us 

blew and beat — 
Fell, where their bleeding bodies paved the path for 

Freedom's feet — 
And when at last the storm was past, and all the sky 

grew fair, 
We found the channels on our cheeks, the silver in our 

hair. 

But dry your tears, my own good wife ! loop up your 

locks of gray. 
And slip the glasses ofif your eyes, and cheat the years, 

to-day, — 
For tho' the snow be on the roof, the frost be on the 

pane. 
Some blossoms of the early spring within our hearts 

remain ; 
Still on these bleak December boughs, fast falling to 

decay, 
In fancy I can see, to-night, again the blooms of 

May, — 
Can hear the robins fluting on the old familiar tree, 
The babble of the brook below — the bluster of the 

bee — 
Can see the lilac blushing still beside the garden walk. 
And hear the jeweled humming-bird upon the holly- 
hock. 

Tho' long has been the journey, wife, that we have 

had to go, 
The skies are bright above us now — the winds no 

longer blow, — 
Across the valley, yonder, I can see the open sea. 
Where the ships are sailing outward to our "ain 

countree." — 



300 The Lute of Life 

I can hear the sailors singing — I can see the crowded 

shore 
Where the signal-lights are burning, and the banners 

blowing o'er; 
We are listed for the voyage, — soon we '11 reach the 

harbor-gate, 
Where the boats come up to anchor, and we won't have 

long to wait, — 
And when the Captain calls us, be it dark or be it 

light, 
We '11 climb aboard the stately ship and bid the world 

"Good-night." 



THE TATTERED BANNERS 

Take back the tattered banners 

From the laughing light of day. 
In the twilight and the silence 

Lay them tenderly away ; 
You have blessed them thro' the years. 
You have kissed them with your tears, 
You have rushed with them to glory 
In a rhapsody of cheers. 

Where their rainbow beauty beckoned 
You have followed, you have stood, 
When the blood of brothers eddied 

At your feet, a purple flood — 
In the dreadful days agone 
You have borne them on and on, 
Till the night of carnage ended 
In the splendor of the dawn. 

Every star upon those banners 

Is a blazing diadem. 
Set there by Freedom's fingers 

When she consecrated them 
In a holocaust of strife, 



The Lute of Life 301 

As she panted for her hfe 
Midst the thunder and the tumult 
Of the trumpet, drum, and fife. 

Every broken, battered stafif 

Over which your flags are furled 

Was a crutch the Nation leaned on 
As she watched the doubting world. 

Proud in all her queenly splendor, 

Yet with loving heart and tender, 

Waiting for each holy promise 

Which the God of Right might send her. 

Take back the tattered banners — 
And let not a tear-drop gleam 

As you yield them to the ages 
That are moving like a dream 

Down the long and lighted way 

To the glad and golden day 

Which your valor purchased for them 
In the old, historic fray. 

Take back the tattered banners — 

Let their sisterhood of stars 
Light the inner shrines of Freedom 

Till Eternity unbars 
The fields of asphodel, 
Where the martyred heroes dwell, 
And the symphonies seraphic 

In unending chorus swell. 



COULD LOVE DO MORE? 

Could love do more? He laid his hand 

Upon the battle-axe and brand, 

And through the conflict's fire and smoke 
Flashed swift and keen his sabre stroke, 

At her imperious command. 



302 The Lute of Life 



He won renown in all the land, 
For her sweet sake, — that he might stand 
Triumphant, and her love invoke — 
Could love do more? 

Alas! she scorned him. Pale and bland, 
He turned away. Upon the strand 

They found him when the morning broke, 
With blood upon his brow and cloak. 
And only she could understand : — 
Could love do more? 



ROBERT BURNS 

The tuneful prophets of the grove 

His poet tongue translated ; 
The simple joys of rural love 

His genius consecrated ; 
The music of the lover's lute 

Beneath his touch grew warmer; 
The land of minstrelsy was mute 

Till Burns began to charm her. 

A song-bird of a stormy night, 

Men heard his wild voice pealing- 
He sang a gospel of delight 

With matchless skill and feeling; 
When by the cotter's humble hearth 

He piped of rustic pleasures, 
The proudest monarchs of the earth 

Stood Hst'ning to his measures. 

A peasant poet of the heart 
With whom is no comparing, 

He scorned the mimicry of art 
With independent daring; 

He toiled among his native braes, 
A lover never lazy, 



The Lute of Life 303 

Immortalizing with his lays 
The "Mousie" and the "Daisy." 

When life had passed its plenilune. 

And joys began to languish, 
He wandered back to Bonnie Doon 

To while away his anguish — 
To breathe away life's twilight hours, 

Remote from haunts of fashion, 
Amidst the vernal fields and flowers 

That nursed his earliest passion. 



THE STORY OF "SHE" 

(WRlTTilN ON A FLY-LEAF) 

And is it but a fancy — but a dream — 
A tantalizing figment of the brain? 
Long, long, beneath the casement I have lain, 
Oblivious of the day's declining beam, 
Bewilderingly drifting down the stream 
Of this strange story, to the ruined plain 
Of Kor, where, caverned in the mountain-chain, 
Dwelt She, the chaste, the changeless, the supreme, — 
The marvelous white empress of the South — 
The lone Enchantress, patient in her pain, 
Till twice ten hundred years brought back again 
The kiss of Kallikrates to her mouth ; — 
Alas! the Pillar of the Rolling Fire 
Was but the fierce flame of her own desire. 



PASSING OF THE OLD YEAR 

With stormy glances backward bent. 
And riveled lips and wrinkled hands, 

He steps at midnight from his tent 
And hobbles down the frozen lands. 



304 The Lute of Life 

Lear-like, he stands against the storm, 
His tattered raiments blown apart, — 

His withered form no fire can warm. 
Nor thaw the life-blood at his heart. 

Like some grim Viking of the North 
Retreating from a plundered ship. 

The gray-beard pilgrim presses forth 
With scowling brow and scornful lip. 

In moody silence moving on. 

He melts into the moonless night. 

And ere the bells ring up the dawn 
His struggling spirit wings its flight. 



TO A LADY 
(in he;r anger) 

I've seen the lightning flame and flash 
Across the summer skies — 

I've seen the tempest leap and dash, 
And awful storms arise, 

But nothing like the hurricane 
I saw in Jessie's eyes. 

Her face is fair — is always fair. 
When peace is in her breast. 

But far more beautiful, I swear. 
When anger breaks her rest — 

When sudden passion stirs her blood 
To fury unexpressed. 

O if those eyes were turned on me 
Before their wrath were fled, 

I'd sink upon my bended knee 
With guilty fear and dread, 

The while I kissed the pretty fist 
She shook above my head. 



The Lute of Life 305 



MY FAVORITE POEM 

It is a little volume, velvet-faced, 
Lettered with blue, and flecked with pink and white, 
With flowers of fancy daintily bedight, 

On leaves of lilied purity, and graced 

With quaint designs, inwrought and interlaced. 
That touch the critic sense with keen delight, — 
And on the first page Love's own copyright 

In lines of beauty delicately ,traced. 

A miracle of poetry ! Each day 

I re-peruse it, for within it lies 
A dream of joy that charms my cares away 

And opes for me the gates of Paradise; 
Nor can I from its sweet enchantment stray, — 

The wondrous epic of my baby's eyes. 



WHEN YOUR FATHER WENT TO WAR 

When your father went to war, Jennie, you were but 

a child, 
A romping little rowdy, running riotous and wild 
In the maple-shaded pasture where our cottage used 

to stand. 
And we owned a timbered forty of the richest river 

land, — ' 
Yes, owned it — every inch of it — by labor's hard 

decree. 
And none we thought, in all the world, were happier 

than we. 
Our cattle browsed the summer hills, amid the blue- 
grass deep. 
And all the shady bottom-lands were snowy with our 

sheep ; 
'T was like a tale of fairy lore, the life that we lived 

then. 
When I was barely twenty-six and you were only ten ; 

20 



3o6 The Lute of Life 

IvOve brought us peace and comfort, till there rose 

an evil star, 
In the summer-time of plenty, when your father went 

to war. 

Ah, Jennie, I remember well the day, — 't was late in 

June, 
Your father he came riding home from town one 

afternoon. 
And his face was pale and haggard as he reached the 

door and threw 
One arm around me, daughter, while he laid one hand 

on you; 
And as my senses faltered and I reeled in his embrace, 
I read the fearful meaning that was written in his 

face, — 
I felt it in the bounding blood that beat against my 

breast, 
I needed not a spoken word, — too well I knew the 

rest; 
And all that night in dreams I heard the tramp of 

marching feet. 
And far away I saw the flags grow dimmer down the 

street ; 
'T was long ago ! but, O, my heart has not outgrown 

the scar 
God's finger put upon it when your father went to 

war. 

Then you and I were left alone. We tried a year or 

so, 
By hiring help, to scrimp along, but couldn't make 

it go; 
The spring floods swept away the corn, the drouth 

of summer dried 
The grasses on the uplands, and we had no crops 

beside ; 
So we parted with the cattle that we could no longer 

keep, 



The Lute of Life 307 

We sold the only team we had, and traded off the 

sheep ; 
And when the winds of autumn shook the pipes about 

the eaves, 
And in the woodland hollows piled the brown Oc- 
tober leaves. 
When the hazel-nuts were ripening in the old familiar 

copse, 
And the wild geese wedging southward, far above 

the maple-tops. 
We locked the dear old farm-house up and closed the 

pasture bar, 
And moved into the village, when your father went 

to war. 

Then winter came — a dreary time — a night of hopes 

and fears. 
On every hand the widows wept, and fell the mothers' 

tears — 
A reign of blood and ruin ! Every day some passing 

train 
Brought back a load of mangled men — ^brought back 

the coffined slain; 
And Jennie, O my Jennie! ere the snows of winter 

passed 
They bore your father back to us — they brought him 

home at last ; 
They sent him from the frozen hills beside the Ten- 
nessee, 
Borne down amidst the battle, where the bravest love 

to be; 
They sent him back a ruined man for life, alas, my 

child! 
I turned away in agony, I raved as one grown wild. 
But why recall the story now ? The years have drifted 

far, 
And we Ve grown used to trouble, since your father 

went to war. 



3o8 The Lute of Life 

The times have changed. We, too, have changed. To- 
night the blue and gray- 
Sit round their fires with lighted pipes and puff their 

hates away — 
Sit spinning yarns about their camps, until the drowsy 

stars 
Put out their light and wave "good-night" across the 

twilight's bars. 
Although my heart be broken, and although my hair 

be white, 
And though the years have brought me but disaster 

in their flight, 
I am wicked in my weakness, I am cruel to complain, 
When yonder patient sufferer sits smiling at his pain — 
Sits crooning in the autumn moon the ballads made 

to praise 
The lustre of his daring in the old heroic days — 
Sits dreaming, Jennie, dreaming, of the battlefields 

that are 
The glory of the ages, since your father went to war. 

A little while — it won't be long, until the soldiers 
come 

And bear away their comrade to the dead-march of a 
drum. 

To the green hills over yonder, where eternal tents are 
spread, 

And no pensions are rejected in the domains of the 
dead; 

Where justice is no jester, and where glory counter- 
signs 

The muster-rolls of freedom as the century declines; 

Yes, child, to that Republic where no partisan is found. 

Where the private is promoted and the potentate dis- 
crowned, 

Our loved one now is journeying ; and as for you and 
me. 

It matters not, — ^the potter's-field our heritage may 
be; 



The Lute of Life 309 



The future frowns and threatens, but thank God it can 

not mar 
The glory that we garnered when your father went 

to war. 



LIBBY PRISON IN CHICAGO 

O gruesome relic of a rueful day! 

What awful recollections throng the brain _ 

Of some who walk thy gloomy floors again, 
Thy reeking dungeons where no sunbeams stray. 
How changed the scenes ! No more in grim array 

The wary sentries pace these pens of pain. 

The voiceless musket and the rusted chain 
Hang on thy walls, as eloquent as they. 

Here yawns the tunnel where the tireless men 
Delved daily, menaced with a thousand fears, 
Toiling for liberty without surcease. 
O brave, imprisoned hearts ! God grant that when 
We tunnel thro' Time's penitential years 
We, too, shall pass into the fields of peace. 



LILT OF THE LUNATIC 

When the soul, in all its splendor, 

On the topmost wave is rowing, 
And in tranquil tones and tender 

All the summer winds are blowing; 
When there's nothing left to render _ 

Greater bliss than now we're knowing. 
And the smiling of the Sender 

Fills the soul to overflowing, — 
What a sorrow 'tis to borrow 

From the burdens of to-morrow 
All the grieving and deceiving, 

All the pangs of disbelieving, 



3IO The Lute of Life 

All the petty cares and quibbles, 
And the canker-worm that nibbles 

At the root of every virtue 
And the heart of every sorrow. 

When the flame of love is dying, 

Like the light in yonder planet, 
And the stricken soul is sighing 

Where the eyes of all may scan it; 
When the heart 's already lying 

'Neath imaginary granite, 
And the ship of hope is flying 

From the shore, with none to man it,- 
What a pleasure, at our leisure. 

To run backward and remeasure 
All the blisses, clasps, and kisses 

That the present moment misses ; 
All the frolic and the folly 

Of the golden days and jolly. 
And to rifle all the pockets 

Of the past of all their treasure. 



BENEATH A PICTURE 

Beauty, the spirit of all love, abides 

And breathes in every line of her sweet face — 

A vital presence — an enthralling grace — 
Wherein the soul of poetry resides; 
The subtle witchery of genius hides 

Within the artist's every touch and trace; 

The arch eyes glow, the riant lips emljrace 
The loveliness of Helen; — in warm tides, 
The rhythmic drapery flows round a form 

Of fair and queenly fullness, such as fires 

The poet's mobile fancy and inspires 
The chastened spirit with a potent charm; 
Our Lady! with the lithe, uplifted arm, 

Whose glad imperious beauty never tires. 



The Lute o£ Life 311 



THE PIONEERS 

Here where the bannered corn and bristling wheat 
Toss their proud tresses to the rustling breeze; 

Here where the arteries of commerce beat, 
Thro' laughing lands of luxury and ease, — 
Where lazy cattle crop the summer leas, 

And singing rivers woo the golden sand; 
Here where the poor man for his labor sees 

Perennial plenty rise on every hand, 

We dwell — ^the youngest heirs of Freedom's holy land. 

Where yonder marble city tops the plain. 
And shining temples in the sunset glow. 

Where wealth and beauty hold perpetual reign, 
And busy hands the seeds of progress sow, — 
In that same spot, a few short years ago. 

The cabin of the swarthy pioneer, 

In cheerless solitude, surpassing show. 

Nurtured beneath its roof the hearts that were 

To build the Empire of the western hemisphere. 

The giants of the infant world, who slew 
The dragons of the wilderness, were they; 

Along the lakes and by the mountains blue 
They burned the stubborn barriers away. 
And blazed a passage for the brighter day 

With ringing axes in the forest deep; 

Their glory is our own ! and I would pay 

The feeble tribute of my verse to keep 

Their hardships unforgot while we their blessings 
reap. 

They dammed the rivers and they built the mills. 
They trapped the beaver and they tracked the bee ; 

They harvested the wild grapes on the hills. 
And steeped the fragrant sassafras for tea, 
Stealing their sugar from the maple-tree; 

The bloodroot, mandrake, and the bitter-sweet, 



3T2 The Lute of Life 

All precious herbs, and bountiful and free, 
Outspread their healing virtues at their feet — 
Nature's apothecaries in her rude retreat. 

For them the plum-tree shed its purple fruit 
In gleaming nuggets 'midst the thicket's shade; 

In Spring the wild strawberry's tender shoot, 
Bediamonded with crimson jewels, made 
The hollows glitter like a masquerade; 

Then Autumn with her brown nuts came at last, 
Pouring her cornucopia in the glade, 

Ere surly Winter blew his chilly blast 

Upon the naked flats and sealed his larder fast. 

And then the snows came, and the squirrel slept 

Within the upper chambers of the oak; 
And thro' the night the watchful rabbit leapt. 

And the wild fox within his den awoke, 
The darkness buttoned round him like a cloak, 
And pausing, listened for the crowing cock; 

Afar the wolf's howl thro' the forest broke. 
And the brusque owl sat hooting on the rock 
And preening the feathers of his antique frock. 

And Summer carpeted with shining flowers 
The old primeval temples, and the song 

Of wild-birds pierced the uninvaded bowers 
With endless melody, when days were long, 
And hearts were innocent and hands were strong, 

And love as guileless as the feet were free; 
And Eden streams, the Eden fields among, 

Ran dimpling to the lakes and to the sea. 

Like unwatched children in their idle revelry. 

But those were troublous times, and fell disease 
Lurked like a demon in the stagnant swamp, 

Amidst the shadows of the cypress trees, 
Where the dull fire-fly lit his chilly lamp, 
And the sleek lizard slumbered in the damp. 



The Lute of Life 3^ 

Beside the reeking serpent and the newt; 

Contagion strode with no unsteady tramp 
Beneath the roof, and plucked the heart's best fruit, 
And draped the lonesome soul with agony acute. 

Anon, upon the sloping upland shone 

New billows of brown earth, unseen before, — 

With here and there a strangely-shapen stone. 
Wraithlike, uprising from the tufted floor. 
With reeling lines of grief engraven o'er 

Its ghastly facets, by some finger rude; 

(Death laughs to scorn the legends on his door, 

Whether within the dim wood's solitude 

Or in the gilded shrines where giddy crowds intrude.) 

Ah! there were dangers, — ^there were accidents 
By flood and field of which we little wot; 

The tempest pitched its melancholy tents 
Above the forest, and the lightning hot 
Flashed thro' the roaring, reeling oaks, and shot 

Its flaming bolts along each toppling height, — 
Trailing its terrors o'er the settler's cot, 

And marking in the fury of its flight. 

Forsooth, a smoking track of ruin, wreck, and blight. 

Death came in many forms, — the vengeful snake 
Unloosed its venom with unerring aim; 

The burly black bear loitered in the brake. 
And nightly to the hill the panther came 
And stealthily outstretched its agile frame. 

To watch and seize the unresisting prey; 

Aye, there were perils more than tongue can name 

That compassed those old foresters, — yet they. 

With souls of flint, toiled on thro' all that twilight grey. 

Around their huts the wily Indian crept. 
His shaft as sudden as the serpent's sting, 

And many a weary mother, as she slept. 
Was startled by the war-whoop's dismal ring. 



314 The Lute of Life 

The hiss of arrow and the twang of string, 
Or the fierce tumult of the savage horde, 

Beneath the wood, in their wild jargoning; 
And many a cabin by the torch was lowered, 
And many a father's blood around his altar poured. 

And prattling boys the rifle learned to wield 
With fatal skill — the pioneers' first trade; — 

To them the bounding buck was forced to yield 
His life-blood in the leafy ambuscade 
Where, all unharmed, for ages he had strayed; 

Heroic boyhood! never belted knight 

With dangling plume, more hardihood displayed 

In civil conflict or in foreign fight 

Than daily marked the lives of those of whom I write. 

All night within the clearing gleamed their fires. 

The dawn-lights of the splendor yet to come; 
The wilderness reeled back before our sires. 

And Sharon's rose, deep-rooted in the gloom, 

In virgin beauty bursted into bloom, 
And shook its fragrant petals o'er the sod; 

Swift fingers sped the shuttle thro' the loom. 
And Titan forms amid the dark hills trod. 
In rugged splendor they, true oracles of God. 

With hands inured to toil, and hearts to love, 

The border prophets taught the Word divine ; 
In lowly chapel and sequestered grove 

Their eloquence burned thro' the soul like wine. 

And drew the evil-doer to the shrine 
Of wholesome virtue, rectitude, and grace; 

They tamed the recreant with words benign. 
And brightened every hope-abandoned face 
With blessed comfortings — these Cartwrights of the 
race. 

But they are gone, — the old plantocracy, — 

They've withered from the greenwood, one and all ; 



The Lute of Life 3]_5 

Above their dust the wind howls dolefully, 
And the last coon-skin molders on the wall ; 
All, all are gone, — and darkness, like a pall, 

Steals o'er the mem'ry of the pioneers ; 
We drink the honey where they quaffed the gall, 

We reap the fruitage of their bitter years, 

And o'er their slumbers deep, outpour the meed of 
tears. 

Soft be their pillow in the forest old, 

And sweet the psalmody of bird and bee! 
Their deeds by distant ages shall be told, 

Their virtues be transplanted o'er the sea; 

Their valor built the newer heraldy, 
And shook the despot on his ancient throne, 

And brought imperial armies to their knee; 
They were our sires, their glory is our own. 
From sainted Washington to brave old Daniel Boone. 



COULD SHE BUT KNOW 

Could she but know the love that stings 
My panting heart, and beats its wings 

Against my lips in dire distress, 

I wonder if the sorceress 
Would deign to soothe its clamorings? 

Could she but know the secret springs 
That feed my soul with sufferings. 

Would she the bitter pangs make less,— 
Could she but know? 

Could she but know the doubt that flings 
Its shadow o'er my heart, and brings 
Destroying nights of sleeplessness, — 
O, would her pitying lips express 
One word — and end my torturings, 
Could she but know? 



3i6 The Lute of Life 



A CONTEMPLATION 

How can the human heart be glad, I crave, 

When round it He such woe and wretchedness — 
When every day the gateways of the grave 

Close on the care-worn cavalcades that press 

Into the unillumined wilderness, 
From whose vague boundaries not one returns? — 

How can the heart be glad, when such excess 
Of human agony still breathes and burns 
Like brands into the soul, wherever it sojourns? 

How can the heart be glad when day by daj'- 

The rich grow haughtier, the poor more poor — 

When multiplying beggars crowd the way; 

Half-clad, to gather bread from door to door — 
When jeweled Croesus, with his coach-and-four, 

Drives hellward headlong o'er a helpless race? — 
How can the heart be glad, when round it pour 

Such torrents of oppression and disgrace, 

Whose nameless horrors, still, my soul recoils to trace ? 

How can the heart be glad when witnessing 
Daily some Tarquin, with lust-litten eyes, 

Dragging an artless virgin quivering 
Into the palace of his harlotries — 
Into Guilt's bridal-hall, where Virtue dies 

And Villainy gloats o'er the ruin wrought? — 
How can the heart be glad, hearing the cries 

Of prostrate parents when their child is brought 

Deflowered unto their door, — dishonored and dis- 
traught ? 

How can the human heart be glad, I say, 

When men are taxing their best powers to find 

New methods still to cripple and to slay 
The frail and tottering columns of mankind? 
What hope remains when brothers, passion-blind, 

Avenge like demons every trite offense? — 



The Lute of Life 317 

How can the heart to pleasure be resigned, 
When every brutal instinct grows intense, 
And Love no longer finds a worthy recompense? 

How can the heart be glad when Justice winks 

Behind her balance at the purse-proud knave; 
When pale Hypocrisy, in priest-cloth, clinks 

The hard-earned pennies some poor widow gave; 

When Pretense issues from his cobwebbed cave 
And climbs the crowded chariot of cheap praise? — 

How can the heart of man be glad, I crave, 
When in the midst of these degenerate days 
Worth sits discrowned and Honor shrinks from public 
gaze? 

Staggers the stricken soul at sight of all 
This seething mass of sin and suffering, — 

When shall the mantle of redemption fall 
Over the planet, like a snow-white wing, 
And leave these godless passions battening 

Upon the hell-broth they themselves have brewed? — 
O speed the day when round the world shall ring 

The anthems of a broader brotherhood, 

And men at length forget to shed each other's blood. 

O speed the day when, glimmering down the world, 

Descends the promise of a happier time, — 
When war's black banners are no more unfurled 

In any country or in any clime ; 

O speed the day when earth, made love-sublime, 
Shall loll upon an atmosphere of Peace, — 

When Joy shall cover up the corpse of Crime, 
And Truth's brave Argonauts from o'er the seas, 
To her chaste hands, once more, shall bring the Golden 
Fleece. 

O speed the day when Science hand in hand 
With Poesy shall walk the star-lit height 
Of Fact and Fancy to the spirit-land 



3i8 The Lute of Life 



Deep in the highlands of the Infinite; 

O speed the day when universal light 
Shall flood the vale of Vice and Ignorance, 

And bring the flowers of Eden into sight; 
When man shall waken from Life's troubled trance 
To solacement supreme, beyond the sky's expanse. 



WHEN I COME HOME 

When I come home, my labors through, 
Between the day-fall and the dew, 

There comes a sound of nimble feet 
Swift-flying down the path to meet 
My own — with laughter and halloo. 

The cares that day by day accrue. 
Turn backward and no more pursue, — 
Turn back from this, my welcome sweet, 
When I come home. 

If I, beyond the welkin blue, 

Shall e'er go thither to renew 

My life so frail and incomplete — 
I only hope some boy will greet 

Me there — just as my own boys do, 
When I come home. 



NOVEMBER. 

Deep lie the shadows on the russet slopes. 

Loud blows the wind and shrilly falls the hail; 
The tangled sedge-grass closes o'er the quail, 

And on the withered hill the woodchuck mopes, 

A dusky image of disastered hopes, 

Against whose roof the ruthless storms prevail;-— 
November! and the farmer hunts the flail, 

And puny Autumn poets seek for tropes. 



The Lute of Life 319 

Alack-a-day ! that Nature e'er should robe her 
Glorious form in gloomy garbs like these; 

Alas! the faded splendor of October, 

The summer gone, and its Arcadian ease ; 

The lengthened year is glimmering to its close 

'Mid piping tempests and descending snows. 



"BEFORE THE WAR" 

"Before the war" — O quaint old phrase, 
That beckons backward to the ways 
Of peace and plenty and repose — 
Ere Desolation's blood-red rose 
Burst into blossom, like a blaze ! 

How passing sweet, when Fancy strays 
Beyond the death-zone to the days 

When brothers were not brothers' foes, 
Before the war! 

But times are changed. No banjo plays 
To dancing feet, in merry maze, 

By moonlight, where the cotton grows — 
Aye, vanished are the sences like those 
On which our glad eyes used to gaze 
Before the war! 



MAD DECEMBER 

Blown down the winds she cometh, mad December, 
Her snowy draperies behind her trailing. 
Her wild eyes flashing and her white lips wailing. 

As if, for some old wrong she did remember. 

Her dark, revengeful spirit would dismember 
The very globe beneath her passion paling; 
A planet's prayer is cold and unavailing 

To her whose anger is a glowing ember. 



320 The Lute of Life 

She treads the tempest, and beneath her feet 
The ductile ocean, like a docile fawn, 

Crouches and licks its blue, congealing lips; 
She stings the night with syllables of sleet, 
And 'gainst the opening eyelids of the dawn 
She lays the icy lashes of her whips. 



A DREAM-LADY 

How looked my love ? Go ask the Tuscan gray 
How, in the golden heart of Paradise, 
Fell on his tranced soul the tender eyes 

Of Beatrice, — or ask Petrarch to say 

How Laura's beauty on his spirit lay. 
What time she thrilled it with such rhapsodies ; 
Or ask of Tasso in what angel-guise 

His Leonora wooed his woes away. 

So looked my lady, but she did not speak. 
Nor lift a hand, nor smile on me, nor sigh, 
Nor greet my soul with any outward sign ; 
Yet by the token-flowers of either cheek, 
And by the dewy pleading of her eye, 
I saw — I felt — I knew that she was mine. 



AN AUTUMN THOUGHT 

The summer came slow, but the summer went fast, 
Its pleasures, before we possessed them, were passed, — 
And the hand we put forth for its blossoms, receives, 
In place of their beauty, a bunch of brown leaves; 
Thus ever the hopes and ambitions we cherish. 
Before their fruition, fade from us and perish. 
And leave on our hearts but a vanishing gleam 
Of the high aspirations that dimpled our dream. 



The Lute of Life 321 

Yet never a murmur escapes us, for we 

Are but part of a plan that but dimly we see; 

And like the proud eagle above us that ranges 

We sweep uncomplaining thro' time and its changes, 

Still looking afar to the mountains whereon 

We can rest, at the last, when our journey is done, 

And garner the pleasures that ever withdrew 

From our grasp, on the earth, as we traveled it through. 



TO MISS A. B. S. 

Where once she goes, 

Her presence stays; 
A charmed repose 

Her glance betrays ; 
Her form, her face. 

Faintly defined. 
Leave sweetness, grace, 

And love behind. 

She comes like some 

Quaint odor blown 
From isles of bloom 

O'er seas unknown; 
She goes, as goes 

At summer dawn 
From leaf and rose 

The dew thereon. 

As shadowy streams 

To lone lakes roll. 
Herself she dreams 

Into my soul ; 
Remote or near. 

It matters naught, 
She's atmosphere 

To my best thought. 

at 



322 The Lute of Life 

TELL ME SOMETHING 

(song) 

Tell me something, if you can, 

Something that I long to hear, — 
Let me be the only man 

Who can understand it, dear ; 
Tell me something in a way 

That is yours, and yours alone, 
Just a little secret, pray, 

That shall be my own, my own. 

CHORUS 

Tell me something — tell me true- 
Something just for me and you; 
Tell me with your eyes, my dear, 
What the world must never hear. 

Tell me something I shall prize 

As the breath within my breast — 
Tell it only with your eyes. 

For their language is the best ; . 
Tell me that which I desire 

More than all things else to hear, 
Tell me with the melting fire 

Of a thrilling glance, my dear. 



A BLUEBIRD IN JANUARY 

A ballet-dancer in a churchyard, thou, — 
A jester in a charnel-house — a gleam 
Of sunlight falling on a frozen stream — 

A sapphire shining on an Ethiop's brow! 

O bluebird lone, perched on that withered bough, 
Come whistle round our doorway, till we dream 
That winter days are over, and the beam 

Of jocund summer glitters on the plow. 



The Lute of Life 323 

The mellow ditties of thy dapper throat 

Fill all the icy air with phantom Springs, — 
And plumaged pipers with a rush of wings 

Seem swarming hither at thy venturous note; — 
But, ah ! brave minstrel, bleaker days we '11 see 
Ere blooms the buttercup and hums the bee. 



ON A LAUREL CANE 

[Cut in the mountains of Oregon by D. W. Matthews, 
and presented to the author.] 

Thou relic plucked from Siskou's lonely side, 
What strange, unlettered story dost thou bring 
From those primeval solitudes that ring 

Responsive to the storm-king's awful stride? 

Full oft hast thou amidst those wilds espied 
The antlered monarch from his covert spring,— 
Hast heard the bounding torrents bellowing. 

And tumbling into cascades steep and wide. 

Thy fallen leaves have rustled to the tread 
Of mountain lions; birds of splendid dyes 
Seldom, if ever, seen by human eyes. 

Have swung upon thy branches. Overhead, 
Eagles have swept the bright Pacific skies, 

And in thy shadow serpents made their bed. 



NOT IN MOOD 

Here lies my pencil 
At hand, and my paper— 

And there, shining softly 
Upon them, my taper, 

Tormentingly wooing, 
With coy necromancy, 



324 The Lute of Life 

My soul to unfetter 
The wing of her fancy. 

But vain are my efforts 

To-night to untangle 
One tune from the skein 

Of the rhythms a-wrangle ; 
My mind is as dull 

As my spirit is stupid, 
Responding not even 

To cooings of Cupid. 

No pulsing of passion 

Awakens to motion 
My feelings becalmed 

As a ship on the ocean ; 
I sigh for the rise of 

A gale to release me, 
But never a breath comes 

To aid or to ease me. 

I marvel if poets 

In general try to 
Enforce an afflatus 

And fail thus as I do ; 
I wonder if ever 

Such fog did environ 
The fancy of Burns 

Or the vision of Byron? 

To-night there is nothing 

About me prehensile, 
And so I'll just push back 

My paper and pencil, 
And blushingly rise with 

A world of excuses, 
And wait a wee bit on 

The whim of my Muses. 



The Lute of Life 325 

THE SILENT SINGER 

(ROSAMOND C. BAII^EY) 

Lifeless she lies — upon her lips the dew 
Of melody still lingers, like the tide 
Of old applauses borne from every side 

In doubling encores when her song was through ; 

And has she gone forever from our view, 
Full-throated in her beauty and dark-eyed. 
Brimming with light and laughter, like a bride 

Whose eager face no anguish ever knew? 

To-night she sings in other lands than ours, 
To vaster throngs in more ethereal bowers — 

Yet seems it still we hear her songs again, 
Breathing like echoes of the seas that dwell 
Within the pearly windings of the shell — 

And listening thus, we all forget our pain. 

VANISHING VISIONS 

The life we live is but a glimmering part 
Of the eternal verity — a gleam 
Of angel-beauty in a broken dream, — 

A mirrored intimation of God's art, — 

A glassing of Himself upon the heart, — 
An evanescent hint of His supreme 
Benignities, that, gathered in one beam. 

Out-flash before our spirits, like a dart. 

Ah, swifter than the swiftest seraph's wing. 
Swifter than light, the heavenly splendors break 
In duplicating ripples, and recede 
Into the vastitudes environing, 

Leaving our dim, deluded eyes to ache, 

Our lips to quiver, and our hearts to bleed. 



326 The Lute of Life 



CHRISTMAS MORNING 

And now the good St. Nick is come and gone, 
And many a fluffy head bursts into flower 
Above the blanket at the twiHght hour, 

With darting eyes that dip into the dawn, 

Seeking the cheery chimney- jamb, whereon 

The pouting stocking, hke some topphng tower, 
Breaks with its weight, and spHts into a shower 

Of broken rainbows round a tropic zone. 

The sun cHmbs up and on! the merry chime 
Of mellow sleigh-bells tinkle o'er the snow ; 

Each crimpled shrub is rimpled up with rime. 
And from the eaves the long icicles grow, 

Till night steals on, and moonbeams through the trees 

Kiss down our lids to pleasant memories. 



A WINTER NIGHT 

Around me are my treasures — by my fire 

Their blue eyes blink, their busy fancies dance 
Upon the pictured pages of romance, 

With shouts of merriment that never tire — 

In the long nights, when winter-winds are dire, 
And pours the sleet in pattering petulance 
Against the pane, I scan each countenance, 

And con my joys with satisfied desire. 

Yet there be other treasures all my own, 
Who bide no longer by my open grate. 
Partakers of my pleasure and my pain — 
Knee-deep above their graves the snows have blown, 
And yet the low, sweet syllables of fate 

Repeat their names and lisp their loves again. 



The Lute of Life 327 



A DISSIPATED GENIUS 

He lived a bottle and a book between, 

Drinking deep draughts from each. The one, 
With rarest wisdom brimmed and over-run. 

Did bathe his soul with beauteous thoughts, I ween ; 

The other, ruinous and all unclean. 

Plunged through his spirit's portals, and anon 
Made havoc of the honors he had won 

By dint of genius in the conflict keen. 

God pitied him at length, and so he died. 
With Plato in his hand, and at his Hp 
A bottle from whose dragon mouth did drip 

A stream of lambent hell — a ghastly tide ! 
He died as he had lived, — ah, well-a-day! 
A tragic lesson, con it as ye may. 



TO ELEANORE 

Belabor me, dear girl, with every term 
Expressive of thy heart's impassioned mood- 
Call me the opposite of all things good, 

Say that my sordid soul is but a germ 

Of guilt and folly ; dub me but a worm, 
Fit only for the heel of maidenhood — 
But dare not chide me with ingratitude, 

That putrid pestilence of minds infirm. 

It ill beseems the beauty of thy lips 
So cruelly to taunt me, Eleanore; 

Be angry if thou wilt — use all the whips 
Of woman's petulance to square the score; 

Unloose thy scorn upon me in a flood, — 

But charge me not with base ingratitude. 



328 The Lute of Life 



LIFE— WHAT IS IT? 

A filmy thread, tangled at either end, 
And drawn across the dial of the years 
By that old Spider, Time, who heeds nor hears 
The murmur of the moments as they blend 
Their melody with wailing hearts that rend. 

And hopes that snap beneath the weight of tears : — 
And ere the swarthy spinner disappears. 
He breaks the magic thread that none can mend, 
Leaving our startled eyes enwrapt in mist. 

Our fingers palsied and our blanched lips mute, 
And busy grave-worms nibbling at the fruit 
Which Death has plucked and dangled at his wrist. 
Nor doth the subtle weaver come again, 
To tie the fibre and complete the skein. 



DEATH— WHAT IS IT? 

It is a peaceful end of all desire, 

An end of dreaming, and an end of song, — 
A happy winding-up of right and wrong, 

A quiet quenching of the vital fire; 

A shadow lying on a broken lyre, — 
A beggar's holiday, — a twilight long, — 
A landing-place where weary pilgrims throng, 

A tranquil terminus of ways that tire. 

Death is a respite from each vain regret. 
It drops the curtain, it concludes the play, 
It turns the lights out, and it leads the way, 

When o'er the house-tops all the stars have set; 
Death is the epilogue to which we list 
Just as the tired audience is dismissed. 



The Lute of Life 329 



A VALEDICTION 

The zvind bloivs east, the wind blows west, 

The last dead leaf is on the tree, — 
Farezvell the merry wine and jest, 

And all good fellows dear to me; 
Those raptur'd hours with feathered feet. 

My aching heart ivould fain recall, — 
But, ah! 'tis ours no more to meet, — 

Good-night, and joy he zvith you all. 

The weary world spins round and round, 

And friends must part as friends have met; 
There is no spot of halloived ground. 

If not where friendship's hoard is set; 
The wind bloivs zvest, the zvind Mows east, 

Our last bright cup is mixed with gall, — 
A death-head glimmers at the feast, — 

Good-night, and joy be zvith you all. 

To-morrow comes, to-morrozv goes. 

But yesterday returns no more; 
We meet with these, zve part zvith those. 

And eyes are dim, and hearts are sore; 
A blinding mist obscures my sight. 

My senses zvith their burden pall, — 
Time halts not in his rapid flight, — 

Good-night, and joy be with you all. 



TRIBUTES IN VERSE 



TWO TRIBUTES 

By Bishop Robert Mclntyre, of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

PlL^NOMINAI, 
(to JAMUS NKWTON MATTHE^WS) 

The name which fell baptismal on thy brow 
Of that apostle, brother of our Lord, 
Surnamed the "J^'^st," blameless in deed and word. 

Fell from a prophet's lips, for just art thou; 

And his,' surnamed the "Wise," who once did bow 
Above the apple 'neath the garden tree. 
When lo! beside it lay the golden key 

Wherewith we fare through all God's mansions now : — 

Yea, both of these in thee do meetly blend. 
Themis and Pallas through thy spacious verse 
Go gracefully, enamored of thine art; 
Pushing thy Fancy's 'broidered tapestry apart, 
They peer where Love doth laughingly rehearse 

Songs which thou singest us, Poet and Poet's Friend. 

— Robe;rt McIntyre;. 

Thi: Sove;re;ign Singe;r 

[Written for a reception and banquet given to James 
Nezuton Mutthezvs in his home, which zvas attended 
by many distinguished persons from all parts of 
the country.'] 

The greener fields and bluer skies of a more perfect 

May 
Were paved beneath and domed above that far diviner 

day, 

333 



334 The Lute of Life 

Where in its unabated heaven, down an unventured 
way, 

The Nine had waited long. 
The eldest with her balmy hands caught up thy face as 

she. 
With all a lover's rapture, made a minstrel out of thee, 
And for her dower she gave the power forevermore 
to be 

The bard of sovereign song. 

Then she tried thy new-strung lute, and her snowy 

finger-tips 
Lay lightlier on the melody that underneath them slips, 
Than lies the melting manna on a dimpled nursling's 
lips. 

Curved ruddily up to cloy 
With rare kisses the ripe mouth of the mother drown- 
ing him 
In the torrent of her tresses, the tumbled, tousled, dim 
Glory of the gyves of gold that hold each leaping limb 
Of her blithe, bonny boy; 

Then gave it back to thee, with sweet sorcery to sing 

Ballads tenderer than trembled on the troubador's 
string. 

Strains as high and holy as the Hebrew timbrels ring 
Where Moses lifts his rod ; 

Then cadenced soft and low as Arcadian shepherds 
blow 

From out their wreathed flutes when moonbeams come 
and go 

O'er piles of pillowed poppies where beside his slack- 
ened bow 

Sleeps the naked chubby god. 

To see the gauze of iris'd mist around the mountains 

furled 
When Day's urn of lilied chrysolite against the hills 

is hurled. 



The Lute of Life 335 

And rivers of rose-dawn, that drench the turrets of 
the world, 

Run veined through every vale ; 

To watch the west, at evening drest in gold and ver- 
meil dyes, 

Where stately clouds swim slowly through empurpled 
sunset skies, 

As drifting swans drop whitely down the streams of 
Paradise 

Where fleets of angels sail ; — 

You called it best to build a nest far from the haunts 

of men ; 
You went where Nature beckoned, as a brook goes 

down a glen ; 
And now for every living thing in field or wood or feiv 

Thou art the interpreter. 
She hath made thy mind a garden, her love thy sole 

desire. 
And singing is the same to thee as to the summer choir. 
When through the red of clover or white broidery of 

the briar 

You walk and talk with her. 

To you, the low of cattle, browsing down at dusk to 
drink 

Where disks of silver daisies rim the ripples at the 
brink. 

And whir the homeward-wheeling doves, and laughs 
the bobolink — 

All winged choristers 

That cheep or chirp or carol by clear lake or dark la- 
goon. 

Or sweep their gyres above the spires amid the yellow 
noon, 

Or cloaked in copse of eglantine bewitch the mellow 
moon — 

Have each a voice like hers. 



33^ The Lute of Life 

To wear the wreath thy friends bequeath, an emperor 
might bow ; 

Laurel and bay we braid to-day to bind upon thy brow, 

Yet half the honor and the love we long to tell thee 
now. 

Lies hid between the lines. 

Not Ahab's ivory palace high could match thy lowly 
home, 

Not Omar's mosque with Syrian sun spilled on its 
gilded dome 

E'er roofed, I ween, so fair a scene, when happy com- 
rades come 

To meet beneath thy pines. 

Not only that thy well-knit soul melodious utterance 

hath. 

Not only that the ills of life have left no scar nor scath 

Upon thy gentle human heart, make we to-day a path 

To thy warm, gracious hearth. 

We heard the world's old whisper, "Not now, but after 

whiles — 
Wait till his fame is full, to go across the weary miles 
And fill the cup of friendship up and gild it with the 

smiles 

That glow at honest worth.'" 

But wiser we, and so we stand, all here to proudly plead 
Thy wisdom and thy wondrous art; we know thou 

wilt not need 
Our words to help or hearten thee, to cheer or inter- 
cede, 

When dust is on thy brow. 
We will not seethe death's cypresses, with rooklike, 

dreary din. 
Or halt around thy empty house, or weeping enter in 
To say with sobs, '"Tis such as he the poet's crown 
doth win" — 

We say it here and now. 

— ROBEJRT McInTYR^. 



The Lute of Life S37 

SONNET TO A SINGER 

Fair poet of the new and golden West, 
I gather notes that wake upon the lyre, 
And body them as voices of a choir 

Are swelled in joyous song and hushed to rest; 

From far-off heights where the Sierra's crest 
Seems half to drink from upward waves of blue, 
From eastern cliffs where kinsmen dwell, and true, 

I catch the notes, so sweet I tremble lest 

I lose their power from out my laurel-song. 

poet-friend ! across these prairies rare 

1 stretch my hand to clasp your hand in mine, — 
You, too, have heard the tuneful harps that throng 

The winds which sweep the lUinoisan air, 
And whisper still of music, yet — divine. 

— Minnie Adeilla Hausen. 



OUR SINGING DOCTOR 

( J AMDS NE;WT0N MATTHEWS) 

Dear Galen, I thank thee again for thy singing, 
As one thanks the robins that herald the spring, 

When brows that are aching 

And hearts that are breaking 
Are mended because of the promise they bring. 

Through woods, over meadows, my love fareth wing- 
ing. 

For, "Bard of the Prairies," my soul clings to thee 
As mists to the fountain. 
As clouds to the mountain. 

As islanders cling to their crofts by the sea. 

No pink teas inspire thee with frigid emotion 
To twitter in triolets over ice-cream; 

Nor yet may those measures 

That scorn the rich treasures 
Of music and melody utter thy dream. 



33^ The Lute of Life 

The voice of the prairies, the breath of devotion, 
Up fresh from the sod, from the blossom, the tree, 
In summer exhaHng, 
Are still the prevailing 
Provokers of song to the spirit of thee. 

Like ancient Anacreon, to love and love's longing 
Thou touchest a harp with no string out of tune ; 

The snows may be flying, 

Euroclydon crying. 
But when thou art singing 'tis always sweet June. 

O bard of the prairies ! long may thy dreams thronging 
Flow into our souls with their raptures divine; 
May glad intimations 
And rare divinations 
And forecasts of paradise ever be thine. 

— Benjamin S. Parker. 



A WREATH O' HEATHER 

(to j. n. m.) 

Din ye hear the Muses singin' 

Doon by Jamie's cot? 
Din ye hear the bluebells ringin' 
For the fairies' dancin' swingin' 
Thro' the meadows — perfumes clingin' 

Round the sacred spot? 

Din ye see the cloudlets bendin' 

O'er that nest sae braw? 
Heaven's love an' light a-blendin' 
In the sangster's soul an' lendin' 
Beauty to the notes he 's sendin' 
To the hearts of a'. 

Din ye ken his sangs are liftin* 
Care fra mony a heart? 



The Lute of Life 339 

Fra his ain the warmth he 's shiftin' — 
Like the cheery sunlight siftin' 
Thro' the mist that, ever driftin', 
Dims earth's fairer part. 

Oot to him my heart is strayin' 

Weel I ken will shine, 
O' the year the merriest day on 
Which I greet this bard an' lay on 
His fair brow the laurels — prayin' 

His the gift divine, 

— Ai,ONZo HiivTON Davis. 



NATURE'S TROUBADOUR 

(j. N. M.) 

Upon thy lips a joyous song is heard, 
As sings the poet, sweetly as a bird, 

As if it were a very joy to sing! 
The voice of rivers gladdens thine own voice ; 
The perfume of the flowers maketh choice 

Thy happy roundelay's rare flavoring. 

— Lee FairchiIvD. 



A WESTERN WARBLER 

When Matthews sings the soul takes wings 
And soars above all sordid things ; 
Straightway the brooding heart forgets 
Its rankling wrongs and vain regrets, 
And Error's countless stains and stings. 

Though bleak the day, the chanson brings 
The splendors of undying springs, 
And scent of fadeless violets, 

When Matthews sings. 



340 The Lute o£ Life 

Right royally the rhyming rings! 
Right gloriously it sweeps and swings! 
From out Life's fevers, fears, and frets 
A deathless dream the verse begets, 
Round which caressing Mem'ry clings, 
When Matthews sings. 

— ^Wai^tsr Hurt. 



MEMORIAL POEMS 



A DEATH -RUNE 

Who, I wonder, will weave 

My winding-sheet? 

Who at my feet 
Will sit in the gloom and grieve. 

When Death I greet? 

What hand on the cofUn-lid 

Will press, when I 

Under it lie 
Hid, as a dead worm 's hid 

In a nut-shell dry? 

Whose hand on the spade will be, 

When the didl mold 

Is shoveled and rolled 
Over the body of me. 

Lying stark and cold? 

What friendly chisel will trace 

On the tablet high 

The generous lie 
To lighten my life's disgrace. 

When I'm laid by? 

What poet-brother will write 
For the public gaze 
A pcean in praise 
Of me and my work, when the night 

Drops over my days? 
343 



344 The Lute of Life 

What form in the after-years 

Will pause in the shade 

Where I am laid, 
And moisten the turf with the tears 

Of a love unpaid? 

Ah, never there comes a reply 
To the curious mind, 
And yet on the wind 
A voice, "Thou shalt die, shalt die," 

Forever sweeps by! 
James Ne wton Ma tthe ws. 



OUR BELOVED BARD 

(jAMES NEWTON MATTHEWS) 

The prairie blossoms are less sweet 
To wistful eye or haunting bee; 

The long hours pass, but half complete. 
For want of song and thee. 

There is no rapture in the line 
Of any new bard's idle lay; 

Rememb'ring some old song of thine, 
I turn my heart away. 

Less radiance trembles in the glow 
That greets me at the dewy dawn, 

Now thy rare smile, like Iris' bow 
Dissolved, has wandered on. 

Dear friend, I may not call thee dead, 
Since everywhere thy voice I hear. 

Yet something fair from life has fled 
And does not reappear. 

for a walk beside the lake, 

A talk whereof the words have wings 
To bear us far where ills forsake 
And joy's light laughter springs! 

Such walks we took in other years, 
But now — 'tis hard to understand — 

1 walk alone through mists of tears. 
Clasping a shadow hand. 



345 



346 The Lute of Life 

But, presto, some clear note of thine 
Rings in my thought, attunes my heart, 

And once again hfe seems divine 
And we are not apart. 

The new bard's singing bringeth bliss, — 
Thy genial spirit wills it so, — 

And all is right and naught amiss 
As hand in hand we go. 

— BENJAMIN S. Parke;r. 



ODE 

(in memory OF' JAMES NEWTON MATTHEWS) 

" But— z/ it afiV."— Jesus Christ. 

Ripe "corn of wheat" from Poetry's thin ear. 
Thou too must "fall upon the ground and die," 
Lest thou "abide alone," Thy minstrelsy 
Is worthier of the saints who dwell on high 

Than of our feebler souls who linger here. 

The utter banishment from self, revealed 
In every note that trembled from thy lyre. 
Quite freed thy mind from thralldom of desire 
For fame, when, pregnant with seraphic fire. 

It bare sweet secrets — from the world concealed. 

We read, and muse upon the deep pure soul 
That breathed itself upon thy shining page. 
And marvel not thou should'st not be the rage 
Of shallow crowds in this too thoughtless age: 

Such meed was ne'er thy gentle spirit's goal. 

Rather — To satisfy some brother man 
Athirst for spiritual waters, clean, 
Refreshing, from the depths, before unseen. 
Of Human Nature sanctified, — hath been 

The well-spring whence thy tide poetic ran. 



The Lute of Life 347 

A stream of song so exquisitely dear. 

The reader's eye may in those depths behold 
The throbbings of a heart of purest gold — 
A heart that beat for men of mortal mold, 

Whom pain and sorrow brought more closely near. 

O good Physician of all several parts 

Of human being, — ^body, soul, and mind, — 
Thou knewest all the failings of our kind, 
Yet not one stanza hast thou left behind 

To satirize the frailties of our hearts. 

Kind soul, sweet soul, we yield thee back to God, 
With blessings for the loan His goodness lent 
To teach us courage, charity, content; — 
Why should we murmur at thy swift ascent 

Of the bright Stair thy daily footsteps trod? 

We give thy martyred body to the dust — 
Thou all too kindly, tender, sensitive 
Physician, who didst, like the Master, give 
Thy priceless life, to help one mortal live. 

Thy soul is with the Lord in whom we trust. 

The music of thy lyre — no funeral knell — 

Rings in our ears. 'Twill make our lives more 

sweet. 
More soulful, more unselfish. . . . Till we 

meet 
Where spirits blend in harmony complete. 
Sleep sweetly, brother bard. So — fare thee well! 

— Henry Tudor. 

MY JAMESY 

'Twas like a flash of darkness, like a stroke 
Of doom — the paralyzing news that came 
To me that day ; my Jamesy dead ! And he. 
Whose heart had through all these teeming years 



348 The Lute of Life 

Beat in the metre and the rhyme of mine. 

Was gone — ^translated to that veiled Beyond 

Of which we'd talked so much, my Jamesy! It 

Was scarcely thinkable the Cosmos could. 

And would, spare such a personality! 

When shall it, and how shall it, duplicate 

That gentle, generous, noble character? 

Who now shall sing those sweet, entrancing notes 

Of his, so far, unsung? What gifted one 

Shall paint upon the brow of Time those tones 

Of high thought, and those mystic miracles 

Of dreamery, with all the trills and thrills 

Whose birthplace and whose home are now no more? 

Let's hope there is a "choir invisible" 

That now shall catch up those unuttered lays 

Of our sweet poet, now sleeping his last sleep. 

A martyr to his duty, this brave man 
Gave up his life that others might live on. 
And shall the ones to whom he ministered 
Quite realize the sacrifice he made 
For their own sakes? 

And what is left for her 
Whose sleepless love and loyalty made life 
For him one long and joyous summer-time? 
There's left a memory of duty done, 
O'er-sweetened with the fragrance of his past. 
For her, for me, for all who knew him well, 
Life's brighter, happier, and more worth while 
Because he was. Farewell, our preciously 
Beloved departed one; our Jamesy, our 
Examplar, and our star of love, farewell ! 

— Wii<WAM Colby Coope^r. 



AUG 9 1911 



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